Styx Boy
by brujon
Summary: Somebody is setting the skeleton warriors on Camp Half-Blood, and something bad's gonna happen if Nico doesn't fix it. Especially since half the camp thinks he's responsible. Nico/OC.
1. A Second Life

A daughter of Hephaestus stood in the doorway of Camp Half-Blood's forge, watching the sun lick the horizon. She looked like a runner, lean and muscular though not very tall, with tanned skin and long, dark hair haphazardly tricked into a ponytail. Her scarred leather apron, several sizes too big, was dulled with smoke and streaked with all manner of filth. Anyone else in shorts would have been shivering in the early March morning, but Natalie's face was still flushed from the forge's fumes. She pulled off a leather glove with her teeth and wiped her face with a relatively clean hand.

Motion caught her eye, and she looked away from the sun that would have blinded anyone else but an Apollo kid. Noticing a bleary-eyed camper stumble out of the Hades cabin, a smile sprang across her face.

"Hey," she called to the dark-haired boy, quietly enough not to wake any of the light sleepers but loudly enough for his sharp ears to catch across the grounds. He looked up abruptly, surprised that anyone else was awake (Why was _he_ awake? Natalie wondered), then sighed and rolled his eyes, but he was smiling. Natalie laughed lightly as he waded through the dewy grass toward her, and admired how his dark, shaggy hair looked bronze in the morning light. She absently wished hers did that.

"What is it?" Nico asked when he reached her, trying to blink away sleep.

"Too early for you?" Natalie smirked at his dark, sleepy eyes. "You know what I want, Styx Boy."

"Yep." He glanced loftily down at her, and drew his sword from his hip. It slid gracefully from its sheath, and Nico watched the expression on her face grow jealous with a smirk.

Suddenly Natalie snatched the sword by the blade with her gloved hand, wrenching it out of Nico's unprepared limb with a grin from her and a yelp of surprise and maybe a little discomfort from him.

"Stygian iron," muttered Nico di Angelo, sulking at the fact that a girl had taken his weapon.

"Mhmm," Natalie answered absently as she examined the dark metal. She turned the sword and looked down its blade, balanced it across her finger, and finally came to a consensus. "That is one sorry excuse for Stygian iron," she told Nico with a look of disgust. "I'd expect a much better sword from anybody that bothered to forge Stygian iron. There's no way you can fight with that!"

"Hey!" Nico said indignantly, snatching his sword back. She made no move to stop him, and he stumbled backward. "That sword's from my father," he muttered, ramming the weapon back into its sheath.

"Well, go ask him for a b—." Natalie fell abruptly silent. Her eyes lit up. Would he let her reforge it? The idea was almost too good to be true—if Nico would just agree! "Can I—," she hesitated. "Can I reforge it?" she begged Nico. She was almost afraid to hope for a yes. "Ohmygoodness, _please_?" The words tumbled out of her mouth, tripping on one another. "I could make a _magnificent _sword with this much iron!" Her brow furrowed momentarily. "Of course, I'm used to celestial bronze, but iron's not _that_ different..."

"I don't know if that's such a good idea," Nico hesitated. "But if you know what you're doing..."

"Yes!" Natalie thrust a triumphant fist into the air. She rushed forward and hugged Nico so hard around the waist he coughed.

"Okay," Nico muttered awkwardly to himself, wondering if he'd made a wise decision.

Natalie tugged her glove back on and darted into the forge. Nico tried to digest what had just happened. Girls just did everything too fast—except for changing or going to the bathroom. But they talked, ran around, and thought way too fast for anyone with a Y chromosome to keep up. He had barely woken up—not even voluntarily at that; he'd had horrible insomnia again—and Natalie had no doubt been wide awake since before the crack of dawn.

Natalie reemerged laden with a huge leather backpack that made destructive clanking sounds at every step. She'd pulled on an orange Camp Half-Blood hoodie and a pair of jeans several sizes too big (Nico suspected they belonged to one of her brothers). Her apron appeared to have disappeared into the pack. "So," she said. "The Underworld? How do you travel nowadays?"

"Uh, yeah. Let's see..." He turned toward the forest and whistled. A distant barking made Natalie flinch. "The hellhound?" she asked gingerly.

"Well, yeah. Daughters of Hephaestus don't shadow travel too well by themselves, last I checked." Nico looked like he was trying to figure out what was bothering her.

Natalie fidgeted. "Well... tell her to be, uh—"

"You don't like dogs."

"Not especially," she grumbled at his unhelpful grin.

"So I'll tell her to behave, not to drool all over you," shrugged Nico.

Mrs. O'Leary burst out of the forest and bounded toward them eagerly. Second to Percy Jackson, Nico was probably the hellhound's favorite camper. He quieted the massive dog easily—she didn't even knock him down—and scratched her behind the ears while he apparently gave her instructions to the Underworld. She turned to Natalie, more docilely than usual despite an enthusiastically wagging tail, and lay down on the ground in front of the skittish girl. She yawned happily and looked expectantly over her shoulder at Natalie. A little more confident now that Mrs. O'Leary had chilled out, Natalie climbed awkwardly onto the black dog's back.

Nico was smirking. "See you there," he said as he literally melted into shadow she was pretty sure hadn't been there a moment before.

"Bye," Natalie grumbled. Mrs. O'Leary, however, remained sprawled on the ground where Nico had left her. "Um," Natalie hesitated, "go? Styx?"

The hellhound leaped to her feet and bounded into darkness that _definitely_ hadn't been there a minute ago, and Natalie's stomach exploded, wind whipped her face, and odd noises echoed through the darkness. Abruptly the dog skidded to a stop, panting hard. In front of them was the River Styx.

"Welcome to the Underworld," teased Nico, rubbing his eyes even more sleepily, as she slid off the drowsy hound's back.

Recovering, Natalie made a wobbly bow. "Why, thank you, Nico."

The Styx, as it turned out, was horribly littered and smelled positively poisonous. She grabbed Nico's sword from his hip, and looked from the sword to the river, trying to make a connection. "That's it?" she asked incredulously. "That's the bucket of _sewage _that produced this gorgeous piece of metal?"

"I thought it was a sorry excuse for Stygian iron," supplied Nico.

Natalie ignored him. "_That's _what made this sword the beauty that it is? _That's_ what the gods _swear by_?" she practically shouted. Clearly she expected far more from the river that muted a god for nine years. However, when the ground shook violently beneath her, she shut her mouth with an audible click.

"Moron," Nico said. "Makes a fine sword. That's what we're here for."

"I'll bet it does if _I_ forge it," Natalie grinned. With a grunt and a clatter, she dumped her leather pack on the ground. Nico would be impressed if anything in it was still in once piece.

"What in Hades is in there?" he asked.

"Oh, only an entire forge," she answered with a shrug. Out of it she produced a small anvil, hammers, buckets, and different-size files. "Styx Boy," she ordered, trying not to smile. "I want your little Underworld-ness to build some stone walls right here"—she drew a large rectangle in the sod with Nico's sword—"two feet high and thick enough to be sturdy."

Nico scowled, apparently unappreciative of Natalie's barking.

"You can do that, right?" She put her hands on her hips. "What's that? Have I offended Styx Boy? I'm sorry." She rolled her eyes. "Nico, _please_ make little Underworld walls right there." She pointed.

Hiding a smile, Nico turned his back on her and walked away, and just as Natalie was about to chuck the sword at the back of his head, stone thrust from the ground precisely where she'd drawn the lines.

"Impressive," muttered Natalie grudgingly, the sword falling to her side. "Um, am I allowed to get a bucket of water from the Styx to dip this sword in, or do I have to cool it in the actual river?" She looked up at the son of Hades.

"I'd cool it in the river," Nico said. "I don't know what would happen if you tried to take water from it. Probably nothing good."

"Alright, then." Natalie looked down at her empty little forge. "Hey, can I have a little platform thing for the anvil?" As she spoke, one wall of the makeshift forge thickened into a sort of table. "Very nice," she told Nico.

He mock bowed. "Why thank you, Hammerhead."

"Shut up," Natalie advised. "I have the knife here."

"S'not a knife," Nico muttered to himself, but he sat against one of the stumpy little trees along the river to watch her work.

Carefully, Natalie concentrated heat into a blue flame and sliced the tongue of flame with the black iron, which glowed instantly. "Ah, good old Dad and his fire. Watch this," she told Nico. She plucked the flame right out of the air and rolled it between her hands like a ball of clay. It glowed brighter and she tossed it in the air and caught it. She showed him her hands, which were of course unscathed. "We're the original pyromaniacs," she winked.

"Oh, forge the sword already," Nico rolled his eyes, but Natalie knew he was impressed.

She settled the flame among the pebbles at the bottom of her forge, turning them from black to a dull orange that glowed brighter every minute. She turned her attention to the sword, and figured she'd better unwrap the hilt first. "What's this?" she asked, peeling off some kind of monster hide from around the grip of the sword.

"It looks like dragon to me."

"Either that or dracaena, which is dirt-cheap and a crappy gift. It's like the fools' gold of the hero world. So I would rather think it's dragonhide. Would you like to know? If it's dracaena skin, well, you won't have it anymore, and nothing will happen if it's dragon."

He shrugged. "If it's dracaena, then it's not worth much, right, so why not?"

Natalie held a flame-crowned finger to the edge of the skin and watched as a cooler orange flame licked up the scales. "Nope, it's dragonhide. Nice stuff. So now for the blade itself."

She pretty much wadded the blade like a bunch of Play-Doh into a chunk of iron and made an entirely different weapon. She hammered and folded, hammered some more, but Nico thought she nested the blade in the fire far less frequently than another smith would have.

"So," Nico asked, "why do you wear those gloves if heat doesn't touch you?"

Natalie smiled. She remembered the talking-to she'd gotten from Jackson when she'd asked this very question. "Well theoretically, right, I could just mold the blade with my hands?" She shook her head. "A red-hot sword has sharp edges too. And the metal is really rough. I haven't actually tried to do this, but one of my brothers still has scars from when he was young and stupid." She shrugged with a grin. "More than he is now, at least." Nico chuckled, and silence fell again as Natalie continued to shape his blade.

Nico, to be honest, had had his doubts about letting a teenager reform a sword that had supposedly been forged by a professional, but he appreciated his decision more and more as his new weapon took shape. It was slightly curved, with a few inches of the inside edge serrated near the hilt. Inscribed along the center of the blade was Ancient Greek: **δεύτερος βίος**

"'Second life,'" Nico murmured. "Nice."

"It's read 'Betanima.' Probably should have asked you," Natalie said apologetically, "but it's usually the forger's job to name a sword, and it just felt right."

"No, you're fine," he said. "It's beautiful."

Natalie beamed. "I don't have to worry about durability because once it goes swimming in there," she gestured toward the Styx with a nod, "it's a Superman sword, so it's really light and graceful." She frowned. "I just have to make sure it doesn't sag."

She yanked off both her gloves and picked the red-hot blade delicately out of the flames. The whole sword was made. Even the hilt was iron, under the dragonhide that would cover it. Natalie walked to the Styx with reverence, all disgust and sarcasm gone. She thrust the newborn sword into the hissing water, careful not to touch the river. "Oh, crap," she said.

"What?"

"The sword is now Stygian iron."

"Yes?"

"Except for the hilt."

"Here," Nico offered to take the sword. She reluctantly handed it to him, forgetting that it was red-hot as well, but he gripped it by the hilt and plunged the whole weapon under. The river lapped over his fist and he swore in pain, but Natalie suspected that it would have done anyone else considerably more damage.

Steam curled off the gleaming sword, and Natalie gasped as Nico offered it to her hilt first. The metal was the color of obsidian, but had a distinct metallic sheen to it. The sword didn't even need to be filed; it was completely smooth, and fatally sharp. It the most beautiful weapon she had ever fashioned, and, quite honestly, believed she ever would. The heat of the weapon was still intense, but although Natalie was vaguely aware of it, it left her skin unharmed.

As the sword cooled, Natalie became aware of staggering fatigue. She swayed, and Nico grasped her arm. He looked concerned. "You alright? You were at it for a while."

Her brow furrowed. "Apparently." She gripped Nico's hand and tried to sit down while remaining vaguely vertical. "Heat has a healing effect on us Hephaestus kids, so I usually take a few eons making a sword, then realize when I'm done that I'm starving, dehydrated, and exhausted." Natalie glanced at the water. "Not drinking that."

Nico laughed. "You bring an anvil, buckets, files, scraps of metal, tons of other crap we don't need, and _no food_? Way to go, Hammerhead."


	2. Dead People Attack

Nico looked Natalie's fantastic handiwork. The blade was longer, lighter, and by far more intimidating than its previous form. He looked in awe at Natalie, snoring slouched against the side of her makeshift forge. Mrs. O'Leary was doing much the same a few feet away. It looked like they were stuck here until everyone had recovered. Nico had never tried shadow traveling with someone else; he'd always left company to the hellhound that seemed to worship him. He had no idea how much energy it would take to carry Natalie back to camp, or even if they'd both make it. And where would Mrs. O'Leary think they'd gone? On second thought, Nico guessed that wouldn't be an issue. Mrs. O'Leary would find him quickly no matter where he left her.

Nico looked down at Natalie again. He decided to risk it. He'd gotten a little nap against that very uncomfortable tree, and it'd woken him up a little. He thought he could afford another shadow turn and then some. Crouching beside the sleeping girl, he said softly, "Hey, Natalie." Snores. "Hey, Hammerhead." He raised his voice some. "Hel_lo_, deaf daughter of Hephaestus," he blurted right in her face. Her eyes fluttered open halfway. "Can you say heavy sleeper?" he teased as she sat up. "Get up, we're going to try something new."

"What?" Natalie asked groggily.

"I'm going to give you a piggyback ride to Camp Half-Blood."

Natalie laughed. "Uh, what?"

Nico pointed at Mrs. O'Leary. "She's not going anywhere, so I'm going to try to get us both back to camp." He paused. "I'm not entirely sure what will happen."

Natalie got up uncertainly. Nico smiled wryly, apparently thinking the same thing: this was going to be just a little awkward. "Just pretend you're an Aphrodite kid," he chuckled.

Natalie grinned. "Oh, what? Just act like a moron and flirt with every living organism within a hundred feet?" They did frivolous things like this all the time and managed not to make it awkward. The opposite of Natalie.

"Um," laughed Nico, "not that part." He crouched down, still laughing, and Natalie got her first shadow piggyback ride.

As soon as he started running, Natalie knew they were going was much faster than he could possibly be running. She wrapped her arms tightly around his neck, and she knew that the thrill in her stomach wasn't entirely because of the speed.

Nico, on the other hand, had regarded his friendship with Natalie as merely friendship. He'd never really known any girls but sister Bianca until Natalie had started bugging him about his Stygian sword a couple of weeks ago. He didn't really know what to do with them, but he'd gotten to know Natalie pretty well, and liked her quite a bit. She went too fast for him at times, but didn't do the girl things that bugged him. She didn't live on gossip, clothes, and boys; she had real conversations and real relationships and real personality.

But until now, it had never even occurred to him to think of her differently. He was completely oblivious to that sort of thing. The couples at camp seemed happy and everything, but Nico was content to let his life happen to him. Prophecies don't ever change, so why should the future? What was "supposed" to happen would happen, sooner or later, so he didn't need to worry about it. That was as far as he was concerned, until now, but all of this fell right out of his head as the darkness melted away to reveal complete chaos.

Nico froze. His face drained of color.

Half-bloods and satyrs were huddled frantically around the Big House, trying to ward off a pressing line of skeletal warriors. Dozens and dozens of them. Smoke billowed from several of the cabins. Skeletons near a cluster of Apollo campers sprouted countless arrows, but they were unaffected. The Hephaestus campers were trying to set Greek fire on them, but that just made the warriors too hot to handle. The satyrs trying to tether them to the ground with roots, but the skeletons were too strong to detain for long. It wasn't going well for Camp Half-Blood.

And Nico and Natalie were on the wrong side of the battle.

When Natalie felt him stiffen, she dropped to the ground and shook him. "Nico!" she shouted. Rooted to the spot, he just stared numbly at the fighting carcasses. "Alright, never mind," she muttered grimly. "I can fight, too." She yanked Betanima out of Nico's sheath, which didn't quite fit the new sword, and threw herself at the horde of gory soldiers, leaving her backpack at Nico's feet.

Natalie knew these undead wouldn't die—not without putting up a serious fight, at least—but she hoped that since Nico's sword was also of the Underworld, maybe she could wound some. She cut herself a path to the Big House, and just as she had hoped, the Stygian iron cleaved each skeleton into explosions of dust.

Natalie reached the line of half-bloods and satyrs and turned to face the enemy, sword weaving in and out, drawing considerable attention when the skeletons actually _did _die. "Where's Nico?" asked Chiron, calm as always. He had a huge bow and a quiver full of arrows, but his shots were futile and he knew it.

Natalie ignored the question and pushed through the campers to another struggling group. They cleared the space around her as she quickly sent seven of the undead back to the Underworld. She tried to ignore the silence swelling around her, and tried to convince herself she was imagining the crowd's hostility.

Suddenly all the skeletons collapsed, weapons falling from crumbling fingers and spines crunching. The bones broke and crumbled, leaving nothing but dust, and even that seemed to melt into the blood-spattered dirt. Natalie knew what must have happened. Sure enough, Nico stood behind the remains of the skeletons, shaking violently. Everyone fell completely silent; several looked angrily at him and Natalie. As soon as Nico took a wobbly step toward Natalie and Chiron, a disagreeable Apollo camper stepped protectively between him and the Big House, and murmurs broke like a wave upon the quiet crowd. Chiron called the kid's name reproachfully and he stepped aside reluctantly, albeit with a distrustful glare.

Chiron came trotting toward Natalie, and she realized that everyone behind her had backed up against the Big House. He slung her onto his back—she probably wouldn't have lasted much longer on her feet anyway—then helped Nico up as well. Silently—well, not _silently_, horses tended to make a lot of noise—he cantered up into the barn-like house. At the door, he turned and called, "Senior campers in here."

Natalie and Nico were slumped in adjacent folding chairs by the time the senior campers filed in. A few looked suspiciously at Nico, but Natalie earned some distrustful looks as well when she handed Nico his sword.

Probably the most hostile one there was the Apollo cabin leader, the one who had confronted Nico on his way in. Apollo kids hated Nico in general, probably because they were afraid of the dark, but Daniel was particularly nasty. He was a year older than Nico, but the son of the Underworld was nearly a foot taller. Apparently, Daniel thought Nico had summoned the skeletal warriors and only knocked them out once they'd done significant damage—which they certainly had. The Hecate, Artemis, Zeus, and Poseidon cabins were on fire, probably because the Artemis cabin was empty and the other three nearly as empty (and therefore ill-protected). Unfortunately, one of the few sparsely populated cabins that had escaped the Greek fire was Nico's.

Chiron knew better than to argue, and Nico followed his lead, confident he didn't have a centaur to convince of his innocence. However, after ten minutes of Daniel peppering the conversation (argument would probably be a better word) with snide comments questioning his loyalty, Nico stood up menacingly, a clenched fist threateningly near his sword hilt.

"Why in Hades would I try to destroy the only home I have?" he asked in a deadly calm voice.

"Only home?" scoffed Daniel. "What about your dad's little palace down there? Go live in the Underworld!"

Nico snorted. Natalie had never seen him so angry. "Why don't you go join Daddy on Mount Olympus." Nico slammed his sword back into its mismatched sheath in disgust.

"Nico," Chiron said gently, "I can see how Daniel might think you were responsible for the attack." He paused, waiting for some kind of denial, defense, something. But Nico sat emotionless in his chair, left hand on the hilt of Betanima, staring at the floor.

Chiron sighed and turned to Natalie.

"He didn't summon them," she said immediately.

"Where were you all morning? I'm assuming Nico was with you?"

"We went to the Styx," Nico said.

"Oh, great," drawled the Hecate cabin senior. She and her younger sister were the only two demigod offspring of Hecate, and they were experts on various magical places, famous curses, and things like that. "Which one of you has the curse of Achilles now?"

Nico glared at the redheaded girl. He refused to let her bring that up. "That was different, Heather," he growled.

Heather arched her eyebrows. "Was it?"

Nico wrenched his gaze from her and fixed his eyes on the floor again. "You wouldn't understand. You weren't there."

Natalie stepped in, looking nervously from Nico to the girl. "I asked to reforge his sword," she explained, leaning over and taking the blade once more from Nico's hip. "I wanted to work with Stygian iron." She handed it to Chiron.

"That was dangerous and foolish," the centaur said sternly. "I thought you knew better than that." He frowned and looked at the sword in his hands. "How did you get there?"

"Shadow travel," Nico put in. "She rode on the hellhound."

"Where is Mrs. O'Leary?"

He shrugged. "Asleep next to the Styx is where we left her. I brought Natalie back myself."

"Do you realize how long you were gone?"

Nico shook his head, but he didn't seem to care. Natalie noticed that he got very withdrawn when he was angry. "What time is it?"

Natalie spoke. "We left at like seven, I think." She looked at the clock down the hall. "It's two," she remarked, quietly shocked. Belatedly she scowled. "We missed lunch!" she muttered to herself.

Nico smirked. "I told you you were at it for a while."

"Yeah. Well. That would explain why I'm starving to death."

"It is a magnificent sword," Chiron conceded quietly, handing the blade back to Nico. After that he tried to steer the conversation back to the main issue. "So we still don't know who summoned the warriors."

"Says Devilboy over there," Daniel said scathingly.

"How many were there?" Chiron sighed.

Nathan, the Athena cabin leader spoke up, a boy with the characteristic blond hair and gray eyes. "Forty-something, one of my brothers said. But we don't know who summoned them, or why. We don't even know whether Hades knew about them leaving the Underworld."

Nico bristled. "My father did not attack his own son," he spat.

Chiron saw now the focal point of Nico's anger. "Nathan didn't say Hades sent them, and I doubt he did. But it isn't hard to imagine him finding out and just seeing what happens."

Nico scowled, disappointed in even his own opinion of his father. "Yeah, he'd do that."

The conversation meandered on to the possibility of forging more Stygian iron weapons, and although Natalie could have actually contributed to that conversation, she was on the way out mentally. She was tired, hungry, thirsty, and had nothing to say that couldn't be said later. Her mind drifted elsewhere, and her head nodded forward. The last thing she remembered was yet another bout of raised voices—something about King Minos.


	3. Birds Worship Nico

Natalie woke to the sound of receding footsteps. Chiron said something Natalie couldn't make out, and then his loud hoofsteps faded too. She shifted sleepily and froze, realizing her head was on somebody's shoulder. Desperately hoping it was Nico, she opened one eye.

Nico smiled at the mortified expression on her face, which upset her stomach quite a bit. "If you're wondering, yes, everyone thinks we're together now," he chuckled. "The cabin seniors are probably spreading horrible rumors."

"Oh, no," Natalie laughed. "We're definitely in trouble now. Forget about the skeleton warriors." After a moment's hesitant silence: "Are we?" She sat up in the creaky folding chair.

Nico's face turned thoughtful. "That's a good question." He looked at her with an odd expression.

To Natalie's disappointment, he left it at that. Nico was thinking much the same thing, but he didn't know how the crap to go about any of this, and Natalie was too embarrassed to say anything more straightforward than that. She thought it was the guys' job to do everything first.

"So," Natalie forged on. "Where's food?"

"Well, we missed lunch," said Nico, "so we could risk bothering the harpies, or just wait for dinner. If I weren't just as hungry, I would recommend waiting, since we would probably live longer, but—"

"Bothering the harpies," Natalie interrupted, pushing her half-asleep self out of the chair. "Come on, Styx Boy. You gotta face them, too." She hauled him out of the chair, her hand lingering on his before she let go, and they were off to search for the little-known kitchens in the far reaches of the Big House.

They found the kitchens by the steam billowing out the door and up the stairs, accompanied by clanking and short-tempered swawking. Apparently, the harpies actually did wash dishes with lava. Nico guessed the stories about punishing kids with dish-washing duty were true. However, it made the kitchen all misty and hard to navigate without banging into something metal. Nico knocked tentatively on the door frame.

"What do you want?" demanded a disembodied voice. "Aello!" The sound of frantic flapping crescendoed and a large black vulture with the head of a shriveled old lady landed in front of them on the scalded tile floor.

"You better get back up those stairs before I snatch the hair off your heads, if all you want is an extra meal," barked the harpy unpleasantly.

Nico and Natalie looked at each other. Neither of them had actually ever met a harpy, and they were far less agreeable than they'd feared. "Er—" Natalie started.

"Celaeno!" Aello called. "They're not leaving!" She flapped her wings, flustered, as another human-headed vulture joined the first.

"Oh, geez," Celaeno looked accusingly at Aello when she spotted the intruders. "Ocypete! You're gonna have to take over door duty again. She's useless at this."

"Just make her stinking cook!" yet another squawky voice demanded. "It's the only thing she's good at!" A third, smaller harpy emerged from the wispy steam.

Aello made an indignant flapping hop. "I can too guard the door!"

Nico cleared his throat, and all three harpies looked at him, as if they'd just realized he was there. "Can we have some lunch?" he asked awkwardly. "We missed it."

The three birds just stared at Nico, like they'd seen him somewhere but couldn't remember where. "You're Hades' boy!" Aello shouted at last. She seemed to be the stupid one.

Nico was looking very confused. "…Yes?"

"What would you like to eat?" Aello asked immediately. Natalie snickered; Nico seemed to have a fan. He very discreetly stuck his tongue out at her.

"Uh," he said, and looked at Natalie. "Just whatever?" he asked. She shrugged. "We'll just have whatever's already cooking."

The harpies scattered into the steamy kitchen to the sound of clattering pots and excited squawking. Once the steam flared up with a sudden swath of flame, and Nico wondered if he should be concerned, but the harpies produced two full meals in less than five minutes. When Nico thanked them, they covered their faces with their wings, bowing clumsy little bird-bows and insisting that he not mention it.

The two half-bloods sat against the wall to eat, and Natalie looked curiously at Nico. "Why on earth do the harpies _worship _you?" she laughed.

Nico shook his head and threw his hands up in the air. "I have no—I mean, they _did _used to torture people down in Tartarus, but I don't understand why that makes me special…" He shook his head. "No idea."

Natalie shrugged. "Great service," she teased.

Since there was no fire for offerings, they left portions uneaten on their plates, and Natalie incinerated them after they were done eating. They gave the plates back to the suck-up harpies and trekked back up the stairs and out the door, soon finding themselves in the deserted pavilion at the forever-empty Hades table. Nico's mood dipped as he remembered that this was the last place he'd ever seen his sister Bianca, but he ignored the bitter memory as they sat down.

"So what did I miss after I fell asleep?" Natalie asked Nico.

"I think you caught the beginning of the conversation about possibly forging more Stygian iron weapons, right? For if those skeleton warriors attack again."

"Yeah. Where did that go?"

Nico tried to stifle a grin. "Well, Chiron suggested that you lead that campaign, and then everyone realized you were asleep."

"Score!" Natalie grinned. "I'm surprised he trusts me with that."

"I don't think he actually believes we had anything to do with the attack; he's just humoring the Apollo kids by interrogating us." Nico rolled his eyes and scowled. "Hate that kid," he mumbled; he must be talking about Daniel.

"So after that?" she prodded.

"Well," said Nico, "then I brought up that I'd seen King Minos' ghost there at the battle. Well—not seen," he amended. "I felt him. Spirits don't come out of the Underworld that often, so it's very noticeable when it does happen." He looked down at the table with a frown, tracing the grain with his finger. "And—well, I know him."

"You know King Minos' ghost?"

"Yeah." Nico looked uncomfortable. "I was young and stupid—and trying to get my sister back," he told her quietly. "Minos taught me how to use the Underworld's power for myself, how to summon the dead and use them. I tried to bring my sister back."

"What happened?" Natalie asked sadly.

"Percy Jackson," Nico chuckled mirthlessly, "knocked some sense into me." He paused. "I was such a brat five years ago."

"I'm sorry," Natalie offered.

"Nah," he waved it off. "I'm fine now." He smiled at her sorrowfully. "She joined Artemis as a Hunter, and left—left me behind." Nico flinched at his own words. "That sounds so bad. I guess it was."

"Was it nice?" Natalie asked absentmindedly. "Before that? Having sort of a normal life?"

"I wouldn't call it normal by a long shot."

"I guess not." They both seemed to remember the original topic of conversation. "So what would Minos have had to do with it?" Natalie asked.

"Well, I imagine he's ticked off at me for turning on him after he helped me so much. But I still don't know how he could have brought warriors up with him without anybody in the camp summoning him." His face darkened. "We don't need another traitor. It cost us too much last time."

Natalie didn't know what he meant, but she decided not to ask; she had joined the camp after Percy's (in)famous request that the gods claim all their demigod children. The camp's population, she had heard, had nearly doubled, with a new wing of cabins. The Hermes cabin had especially appreciated this change, since before then, the "undetermined" campers—those whose divine parentage was, well, undetermined—had been crammed into the cabin of the god of travelers. All she knew about what had happened before all this was that there had been an enormously costly and tragic battle that no one would talk about.

Something occurred to Natalie, if they ended up taking more than three campers at a time to the Underworld. "Looks like we need a different route to the Styx."

"Yeah," Nico agreed, jerked out of his little reminiscent trance. "Carrying you back was fun and all, but," he laughed. "And it occurred to me you can't eat or drink in the Underworld—well, I can—"

"You don't count, Styx Boy," Natalie teased.

Nico made a face. "Anyway, I remembered something my dad told me: that you can't eat or drink in the Underworld or you're stuck there for eternity."

Natalie blinked. "Good thing I forgot food."

"Yeah," Nico agreed. "We got lucky."

Speaking of routes to the Underworld, suddenly the two heard a giant bark. It sounded indignant, like Mrs. O'Leary knew they had ditched her next to the Styx. Nico stood up and trotted to meet her before the dog could knock over any tables, and told her she needed to get back to the forest. She whined and reluctantly obeyed, dragging her tail and hanging her head and throwing him devastated looks. Nico threw his hands in the air in exasperation. "Oh, all right, girl, get back here," he surrendered.

With a delighted howl, Mrs. O'Leary dashed into the forest, and came back immediately with a drooled-on, bent, and battered bronze shield. She dropped it at Nico's feet, her tail wagging so hard her butt wiggled back and forth. He laughed, gave her an affectionate scratch behind the ears, and sent the bronze shield as far as he could throw it. "Crazy dog," he chuckled.

"You know," Natalie admitted, "she's not that bad. For a dog, that is."

"She really isn't," Nico agreed.

"Well, where's the nearest physical entrance to the Underworld? Is the one in LA the only way?"

Nico shook his head. "Percy and I once used Orpheus' entrance in Central Park. But that one comes out behind the main gates, so I'd have to come every time—though," he conceded, "I'll probably end up doing that anyway. And we'd need an Apollo kid or a satyr, since the entrance opens with music."

Natalie thought about that. "So for each trip we'd need a Hephaestus kid to forge, you to get us past Cerberus, and either a satyr or an Apollo camper—"

"Preferably a satyr," Nico interrupted.

Natalie rolled her eyes. "To open the entrance," she finished. "Plus all the kids that want weapons. And it probably wouldn't be a terrible idea to stash a bunch of food in Central Park outside the entrance. Any satyr would probably want to stay above ground, so they could, I don't know, stand guard or whatever."

Nico nodded slowly. "I'm trying to think of anything else we might need. That sounds like about it, though." He propped his elbow on the table and rested his chin on his hand. "Well done, Hammerhead," he smirked.

"So," Natalie grinned, "as far as inanimate things are concerned, we probably ought to bring the same stuff. Except now I know that Stygian iron sharpens itself and doesn't need to be filed. I also don't need to bring the buckets, since the water stays in the river. Sounds like all I need are hammers and an anvil and the little forge you made me down there."

"And iron," Nico shrugged.

Natalie grinned sheepishly. "That might be helpful. How many weapons does Chiron—?" She shook her head. "Let's just go ask Chiron the specifics, since I slept through them."


	4. Nico Has Nightmares About Himself

Chiron was at the archery range as usual, overseeing the afternoon onslaught of campers. Today he was teaching basics to a bunch of the younger half-bloods. Normally, the targets wobbled around, all but sabotaging any archers but the Apollo campers themselves, but for the newbies, they were stationary, and Natalie swore the bullseyes were a little bigger. Then again, she wouldn't know—she hated archery with a passion. A small dark-haired girl on the far end of the line of little archers was getting frustrated, and Natalie swore the kid was crackling with electricity: a daughter of Zeus.

Since the gods' promise to identify all their demigod children, more and more younger half-bloods had been coming to camp. The camp directors had had to organize Junior Chariot Races and the occasional Junior Capture the Flag for campers under ten years old because they would get trampled by all the older kids in any normal event. It was a great show for the older half-bloods, since the youngest of the "juniors" were often powerful heroes in the making. Nico in particular found it thoroughly entertaining to watch a seven-year-old Ares kid face off with the young twin daughters of Poseidon.

Chiron looked like he'd had about enough of snotty little kids with their five-pound bows, and more than a trace of relief showed on his face when he saw Natalie and Nico walk up. He dismissed the young archers and turned to them. "Anything new?" he asked.

Natalie told him that yes, she'd love to take a group of campers back to the Styx, and how she planned to do it. Nico commented and supplied information every now and then, but was mostly silent, watching mysterious things flit in and out of the fringe of the forest.

"And about the weapons themselves—how many do we need? Will they all be swords?" Natalie paused. "I think we need to decide who we trust with Stygian iron and who would wield it the best, and then make weapons specifically for them."

"Also, Stygian iron works differently for children of Hades than it does for other demigods," Nico put in. "I can use the essence of the monsters killed with this sword as power; Stygian iron for _me _drains their life and gives the sword and its bearer power. But for you"—he glanced curiously at Natalie—"it behaved like a normal sword. It just turned the skeletons to dust when you used it. I don't know whether that's because you're not of the Underworld, or because we didn't forge the blade correctly in the ceremonial sense." His brow knitted as he remembered something. "When my father gave it to me, he said, 'By the Styx, this weapon is a gift of Hades.'"

As he said the words, Betanima glowed blue for a mere half-second, then returned to its natural color. Nico started and swore. He drew the blade quickly, trying to get it away from him. Natalie caught it, and realized why he'd tossed it away. It was flaming hot, and although it meant no pain to her, she knew it would harm a half-blood of different parentage.

Nico gingerly rubbed his blistered hand. "That must have been what we didn't do. It should behave normally now." Natalie felt the iron return to a normal temperature and handed it back to him. He hesitated before he took it. "That means Natalie's definitely right about forging personal weapons. This Stygian oath should be specific to each bearer, or the iron might be dangerous to some half-bloods."

Chiron nodded gravely. "I will ask tonight at dinner who is willing to accompany you to the Underworld and have a sword forged. It looks like you and your brothers are going to be busy," he told Natalie. "You'll probably have to go too, Nico." Nico nodded.

"Are you going to let everyone who volunteers forge themselves a Stygian iron sword?" Natalie asked, clearly disapproving of this idea.

"I'll restrict it to older campers, and then I suppose you can discriminate further. I trust you two," Chiron said seriously.

They both nodded graciously. Natalie left to assess the stock of iron in the forges, and Nico was left to compose a silent list of people he did not want carting around Stygian weapons. Nothing like this mass-production of sacred weapons had ever been done, and Nico wondered if it wasn't such a good idea. But like he had said to Daniel, this was his home, and he didn't want any campers to get hurt. He was grateful at this point that Natalie had fought with his sword; she wouldn't have retreated, whether or not her attack had had any effect.

But Nico was too tired to focus on anything, so he skipped dinner in favor of a nap. He headed down to his cabin, of which he remained the sole occupant, and for the first time wished he had someone to share it with. It was a low building of black marble with skulls and bones forming the steps. Nico had always thought the architect went a little overboard with the bones, but he didn't care enough to be annoyed. He buried himself in the piles of black blankets on his bed and fell asleep immediately. Perpetually freezing, Nico had stolen blankets from several of the other identical, empty beds in the cabin, and his bed was an untouched pile of a mess. Greek fire dimly lit the black walls and revealed charcoal sketches strewn all over the floor around his bed. Nico had especially vivid, sometimes horrific dreams, and he had gotten into the habit of drawing them when he woke up. Most had been drawn in the middle of the night, but since the green torches burned constantly, the light was dim but reliably constant.

The particular dream he had now was not new; he had never dreamed it, but the scenario itself was familiar. Nico saw himself, much younger and considerably shorter. It must have been right around the time he had been trying to bring Bianca back from the Underworld, because he recognized the now-extinct Labyrinth's tunnels, and the shimmering ghost of King Minos.

The ten-year-old Nico in the dream was kneeling in front of a hole, pouring Cokes out. The scene was all too familiar. Minos was encouraging him in his own sick way, provoking Nico's silent anger into action, and the real Nico, invisible and paralyzed in the dream, suddenly got so angry he woke himself up. He had forgotten how very appealing Minos's offers were at the time, and how persuasive the ghost himself was.

Nico had no desire whatsoever to draw the scene that had just dissipated behind his eyelids, but he sat up and grabbed a rough sheet of paper and the stick of charred wood he had picked out of Hestia's fire (with her permission). He slid off the bed and sat among his drawings, on top of some of them, and started to draw. He thanked Hestia yet again for the seemingly infinite stick of charcoal.

His memory of Bianca had been prodded, so Nico sketched out the face of a girl. But after a moment, what he saw was not his sister's face, but Natalie's. He sat back on the hard marble floor, leaning against the side of his bed. He remembered with a smile the events of just this morning, specifically the piggyback ride that had made Nico glad Natalie couldn't see his red face. He realized for the first time fully what she meant to him. Before her, Nico had had friends, but his relationships were few and tenuous. He was a natural outcast, just like the Nemesis kids, but she had seen past that, seen _him_. Who else had done that so completely?

Abruptly he stood up and crammed his feet in his shoes. Blinking in the afternoon sun, he went up to the pavilion, wondering whether he'd missed dinner. Apparently they were just finishing up. There was the normal loud conversation, but as Nico approached the tables, Chiron called for everyone's attention. Natalie caught Nico's eye from the Hephaestus table and gave him a wonder-what'll-happen look. He sat down at the empty Hades table, a little more conspicuously than he'd like, and pretended to ignore the distrustful looks he was receiving from all sides.

"In light of the recent anonymous attack,"—vague murmuring filled his slight pause—"Mr. D and I have decided that it would be wise to defend ourselves to the best of our abilities against such attacks. Natalie Smith has demonstrated the effective power of Stygian iron against these monsters, so Mr. D and I are sending a quest of sorts to the Underworld to forge more Stygian weapons." There were many comments to be had, but Chiron ignored them for the moment. "Natalie and Nico di Angelo will take campers to the Underworld to forge Stygian iron weapons. Campers over thirteen—no, that does not _include_ thirteen-year-olds," he answered an overeager Athena camper, "—may elect to join them. Nico and Natalie, since they know best what we're dealing with, will choose who will wield the weapons, since they are dangerous and sacred to the Styx.

"If you would like to join them," several overly eager hands shot into the air prematurely, met by some giggles, "one of the Hephaestus campers will forge you a weapon of your choice. Stygian iron," the centaur warned, "is an extremely volatile metal, and not even Nico knows everything about it, so know before you volunteer that this could be a very dangerous experiment." Chiron looked expectantly at Natalie.

She stood up and looked significantly at Nico, so he stood up, too. "If you'd like to help us, come and stand up here," she said, going to stand with Chiron at the fire pit. Nico followed, trying to look like he knew what he was doing.

Natalie's two brothers Jackson and Riley were the first to join them, and she gave them grateful smiles. Nico nodded in thanks. Slowly, more stood up. Nico and Natalie had had no idea how many they'd end up with, but as the numbers grew, they relaxed. To their relief, no Aphrodite or Apollo kids stood up: the vain Aphrodite campers would probably just hurt themselves, and Nico would probably accidentally maim Daniel or any of his siblings. They had a pretty good range of demigods. Almost all of the Ares kids came up, followed by one or two from the Hermes cabin. The children of Demeter weren't much for fighting, so none of them volunteered, but two of the five Nemesis campers did, along with several of Athena's. Peter, one of Morpheus's sons, volunteered; he was by far the best swordfighter in the camp, even though he was only fourteen. The Thanatos triplets were looking resentful, probably because like the Apollo campers, they naturally despised Hades—in their case because Hades had pretty much overshadowed Thanatos' existence forever.

They ended up with twenty-two volunteers: six from Ares, two from Hermes, one from Morpheus, two from Nemesis, four from Athena, one from Hecate, two from Eris, Nico from Hades, and three from Hephaestus, including Natalie. Of those, Nico and Natalie turned down the two daughters of Eris, one of the Hermes kids, and two especially bloodthirsty Ares offspring. Seventeen demigods in need of Stygian iron weapons.

"Alright," Natalie said slowly, after they had finally gotten Eris' uncooperative daughters to leave. "We're going to make three trips down there. Nico, Jackson, Riley and I are going to accompany all three groups, since we're forging the weapons, and Nico knows the area. So that leaves thirteen impending weapons, not including weapons you want to make for yourselves," she looked at Jackson and Riley. "We'll make our own weapons last," she added with a knowing grin, "since we'll take a very long time for our own swords, myself included. So we'll take five down on the first trip, not including us four, five on the second trip, and just three the last time, so we can make our weapons." She took a deep breath, like she'd said the whole thing in one breath. "Any questions?" she asked the campers up front.

"When do we start?" asked Riley.


	5. Natalie Dies, But Not Really

Today was the day.

Nico groaned and buried deeper into his blankets. "Go away," came his muffled voice. "It's Saturday."

Natalie swatted a pile of blankets where she guessed his head was. "Up, Styx Boy," she ordered. "There's work to do." A pause. "Good grief," Natalie said in a different tone of voice. "What _is_ all this?"

Nico's eyes shot open. His drawings. And the one of her was who-knows-where. He scrambled/fell out of his bed, taking several blankets down with him, and hit the floor hard. "Ow," he complained. "What time is it?"

Natalie looked up from the paper scattered around Nico's bed like wood shavings. "Late enough for me to come looking for you."

He stuck his tongue out at her. "It doesn't get light in here."

"Did you draw these?" Natalie asked, her attention returning to the floor.

Nico hoped it wasn't bright enough for her to recognize the drawing of her, because it was in plain sight. He tried not to look at it, but she had already seen it. Neither of them said anything. "Uh," he turned red. "Yeah. It's mostly stuff I dream about." Oh, _wonderful_. Now Natalie was going to think he'd had a dream about her. Nico turned redder.

But he _had_. In the span of about two seconds, he remembered a very short but vivid dream that had involved Natalie—dying. She'd been trapped by the same skeleton warriors, but this time with no Stygian iron sword. Then the dream morphed into a different scenario that had seemed much more real: Natalie forging more Stygian iron. But then the skeletons emerged again and pushed her into the Styx.

Nico didn't know how he'd managed to forget that dream, but it opened his eyes. They needed to forge those swords before something worse happened.

"What?" Natalie asked, noticing him staring at her. She looked embarrassed, but not in an uncomfortable way—more like the awkwardly awesome way.

Nico looked back at the floor, which was a bad idea because it returned Natalie's attention to his drawings. "I'm gonna go shower now," he muttered, and shuffled sleepily out the door, not caring now what Natalie found in his cabin.

It wasn't like he didn't want her to find out eventually.

Nico was the last camper ready. "Everybody here?" He looked around, and when he saw that the important people were there—Natalie, Riley, Jackson, Peter, and himself—he whistled for Mrs. O'Leary. Nobody was shadow traveling, but if the group ran into a particularly large monster—or Cerberus—Mrs. O'Leary would be good to have along. She bounded over from the arena with her bronze shield with much barking and drooling. "No frisbee today," Nico broke it to her. "We're going to the Underworld. You meet us at the Styx." The hellhound barked excitedly and bounded off.

The nine half-bloods, two satyrs and Argus managed to fit themselves into a camp car, and they drove the relatively short distance to Central Park. They must have looked a little odd, a bunch of kids, a silent adult, and two limping teenagers carrying enough McDonald's for fifteen people. Nico personally expected the little Happy Meal boxes to be gone by the time they got back—satyrs ate when nervous—but the food, with any luck, would still be there.

"Rose?" Nico asked one of the satyrs. "Would play something on your pipes? We need music for Orpheus' entrance to open. The shy girl nodded, and before she had gotten through five seconds of a Jonas Brothers song that made most of the guys there pretend to vomit, the rocks in front of them split apart just as they had for Nico, Percy, and Grover years ago. He thanked Rose, and said goodbye to her, her brother Trevor, and Argus as he led the way to the Underworld.

As they entered the tunnel, Nico almost wished one of the Thanatos kids was here. He'd heard they could sense death shortly before it actually happened—very much like how Nico could tell when someone died—and even stop it from happening sometimes. He shook his head. They weren't even technically in the Underworld yet, and he was already expecting casualties. Not good.

It was uneasily silent for the first couple feet down the tunnel, but reluctant whispering then nervous conversation ensued. Nico and Natalie led the group, behind them her two brothers and the four Ares kids. At the back was quiet Peter, hand constantly on his hand-and-a-half bronze sword.

"How are we going to cool the swords?" Natalie wondered suddenly. "Last time you got hurt."

"But you didn't."

Natalie turned pink, but was stifling a smile. "I'm not the only one that matters, Styx Boy."

Nico looked at her with an amused smile. "Neither am I," he pointed out. "We'll just do it the same way. I didn't get burned, the Styx just isn't friendly to strangers."

"All right," Natalie agreed reluctantly. "What would it have done to me if I'd put my hand in?"

"I don't know," Nico answered uncertainly. "I don't want to try, though." His stomach freaked out as he came up with a good excuse to take her hand. "You need to be able to forge with these," he said, trying not to smile as he held up her hand and cradled it against his chest.

But since demigods can't enjoy themselves for long without some monster popping out of nowhere, Cerberus picked this particular day to be grumpy. He never had liked demigods alive, but Nico had always been tolerated. If he'd been paying attention, Nico would have realized that they were approaching the Underworld entrance. Cerberus had smelled life and come to ambush them, since the place where the tunnel emerged wasn't far from the three-headed dog's station at the gates.

"Hey!" Nico yelled at the snarling heads. He drew Betanima and waved it in front of the middle head's nose. "Knock it off!" But the rott wasn't interested in passing up so much meat. Rolling his eyes in exasperation, Nico backed off and whistled. Mrs. O'Leary let out a howl of delight as Cerberus was about to snap Nico up with his left head. Cerberus's ears perked up, and suddenly the massive rottweiler was much more interested in the hellhound's butt than in his potential meal.

The half-bloods hurried past the two dogs through the crowded gates, met by many resentful looks from the dead as they filed into the Fields of Asphodel. Nico led them back up the Styx back the direction they'd come, but this time on the other side of the intimidating fence. The Ares campers looked enviously at the river, as if they knew what power it could give them—no doubt they'd heard rumors of Achilles' curse. This put a scowl on Nico's face. "Don't even think about it," he told them. "It's more complicated then just jumping in, trust me." One of them looked mutinously back at him, but Nico knew if they tried they'd be in big trouble. He wouldn't have to worry about any of the campers coming back to Camp Half-Blood with that particular curse.

It occurred to Nico that he might actually _want _to tell them all how to take on the curse, in case one of them fell into the Styx, so they didn't die, but then there was the chance that somebody would jump in and say they fell. No, that wasn't a good idea. He wasn't going to be responsible for four invincible Ares kids.

But suddenly, unbidden images from last night's dream jumped to mind. Natalie falling into the Styx scared the crap out of Nico, if he was honest. He wouldn't let that happen. He pulled Natalie and her brothers aside and briefly explained to them the curse of Achilles. "If you fall in," Nico couldn't help glancing at Natalie, "concentrate on one spot on your body, and anchor your life in this world to that one spot. If you fall in and do this, you will bear Achilles' curse: you will be nearly invincible—except for that one spot."

"You didn't tell anybody else about this, did you?" Natalie guessed.

Nico shook his head. "To be honest, I don't trust the Ares kids with it. But you three are going to be here all three times, so I thought I'd keep you the safest."

Riley elbowed Natalie in the ribs with a knowing grin, and she responded by blowing fire into his ear. He stuck a finger into his ear with a confused expression. "What the heck did you just do?" he asked, baffled. Natalie chuckled and headed to the spot near the Styx where she had reforged Nico's sword.

"May I have a forge here, Nico?" she asked. Like before, stone grew out of the ground in precise planes and edges, and people turned to watch as one wall thickened into a sort of platform for her anvil. A moment later, two more sprouted from the ground along the Styx. Natalie called her brothers over and briefly explained what they were for. "Hey," she called. "Who wants the first weapon?"

All the Ares kids raised their hands. "Thanks for volunteering, Peter," Natalie smirked. "I'm guessing you want a sword?"

He nodded. "Another hand-and-a-half will be good."

"Curved or straight?"

Peter shrugged. "Either."

"Alrighty," Natalie said, rubbing her hands together. She talked as she worked, narrating the process to her brothers. They were probably the only ones there who understood the conversation; she was spewing crazy technical terms and doing all sorts of calculations that Nico had no idea were necessary to forge a sword. The children of Ares quickly lost interest, but Peter stood then sat nearby to watch, just as Nico had.

Peter's blade didn't take Natalie nearly as long as Betanima, but the sword that resulted wasn't any less gorgeous. It was completely different, though; Nico wouldn't have dreamed that the same person had forged both. The hand-and-a-half sword angled in the middle as if it had been bent, and its tip was slanted like the end of a saber rather than tapered like Nico's. Unlike a saber, however, the sword was double-edged. Like Betanima, the sword was lighter than a typical sword, since Stygian iron wouldn't snap or bend regardless of how much pressure it was subject to or how thin the metal was. Its hilt was bare: Peter would finish his sword back at camp.

Nico approached as Natalie pulled the white-hot blade out of the fire, ready to dip the sword into the river. She submerged the new weapon in the Styx up to the crossguard and screwed her eyes shut against the onslaught of steam. She then handed the sword to Nico, who gritted his teeth and tried to keep silent as the sacred water of the Styx that transformed the sword also bit into his hand.

He handed the sword to Natalie, who then gave it to Peter. He looked the sword over in awe, and then up at Natalie. "Now, something about a Stygian oath?"

"Yeah." She looked to Nico.

"I don't know much about them," he admitted, "but like you could swear on the Styx that this sword will never be used against a half-blood, or that kind of thing. If you make the kind of oath that can be broken, be careful, because it can kill you. My dad swore on the Styx that this sword"—he halfway unsheathed Betanima demonstratively—"was a gift of Hades. I accidentally swore the same thing. That's how I figured out we needed to finish the sword with an oath."

Peter thought for a moment. "Do I have to decide now? he asked.

Nico shrugged. "You can wait, but it will be much more powerful once you make the oath."

Peter nodded, and walked to a dead tree overhanging the Styx. He sat down and leaned against it, looking at his weapon contemplatively while he brainstormed over its name. Suddenly he looked up at Natalie. "You named it," he said in surprise. "First turn?"

"Archeturn. Yeah, the one who forges it names it," Natalie told him. "'Arche-' means 'first' or 'original,' and 'turn' is just for the way it looks bent." She looked at her brothers. "Don't name them anything stupid," was how she finished her demonstration.

"Oh," Nico thought he should tell Peter, "and when you make the oath, the iron turns blue, it gets so hot, so let one of the Hephaestus kids hold it, or put it on the ground before you say anything important."

Peter's sword was by far the most sophisticated weapon of the day; the Ares offspring all wanted very dangerous-looking weapons with spikes and crap all over them. The first one wanted a spear and demanded that the tip be forked. Natalie thought this was exceedingly stupid, but she quit arguing after the hot-tempered girl started yelling. She fully expected the kid to impale something and then not be able to retrieve the weapon. Natalie named it Ophidius, which literally meant "snake." Her brother wanted a pair of barbed knives from Riley. He thought they were unnecessary but not stupid enough to contradict. Jackson advised the third and fourth Ares kids (twins) against matching swords that _sounded _outrageous before he even made them—with barbs and notches everywhere—but ended up insulting their mother, which isn't a good idea when you're dealing with two sons of Ares who are in a bad mood from waiting anyway. So Jackson forged both swords with a broken nose. He named one Melanoptis, which he intended to mean "black eye," and the other Osseos, which pretty much meant "bone."

And if the weapons themselves were stupid, the oaths were even worse. Peter's oath was well thought-out and respectable: "I swear on the Styx that this weapon will never harm an ally." On the other hand, Ares was hardly a thoughtful or wise god, and his children took after him in those regards. The worst one was probably "I swear by the River Styx that mighty monsters will be slain by this spear." It sounded heroic, but it served no purpose. Whether or not they had a sword that obliged them to, the Ares clan was always off to destroy monsters—the mightier the better. It gave no reference to allegiance or loyalty, just a bloodlust for monsters, which the bearer certainly already had.

But it could have been loads worse. Everyone reached the earth's surface with their lives (and mortality) intact, for the most part unscathed (except for Jackson's nose), and all the weapons were made, named, and consecrated by the Stygian oaths. But they were so hungry by the end of the trip, the fifteen Happy Meals were gone in minutes. Everybody ate at least one and then fought over the leftovers. They finally all agreed to give Natalie and her brothers the last one in thanks, if only they got to go do McDonald's again on the way back to camp.


	6. Capture the Camp

Despite (or maybe because of) the anonymous attack situation, Capture the Flag was scheduled the day after their first trip to the Underworld. The second and third trips were postponed just a day, but Nico didn't really care, since he hadn't gotten a good night's sleep anyway, and Daniel had renewed in him the Apollo-Hades rivalry. Nike's allies (they weren't playing) would play against Athena and her allies. Athena's allies were Apollo, Hermes, Isis and Hecate—the bigger, more popular cabins. In the last game, Nike had won allied with Hades, Hephaestus, Ares, Morpheus (just Peter, really), Nemesis, Eris, and Thanatos. The children of the smaller, less universally accepted gods and goddesses tended to band together; Nico wasn't the only one that inherited enemies from his divine parent. Hephaestus was ugly; Janus couldn't be trusted; Ares just made everybody mad. The perfect little smart kids from the Athena cabin didn't like or particularly trust the minor gods for the most part. Isis and Hecate were exceptions, probably because they wouldn't tolerate Hades' son either. Just the thought of the upcoming competition made Nico flex his hand around the absence of a sword at his hip. (Natalie had borrowed it to conduct a series of experiments on the Stygian iron—Nico would have been concerned if it wasn't Natalie.)

Dinner was rather uneventful. The Hermes table was positively plotting, and the Athena campers were trying to out-plot them, since they fancied themselves in charge. Nico and his allies weren't plotting because their strategy had already been hammered out that morning. All that remained was to put it into action after dinner.

The Athena campers would be directing the other team's strategy, so Nico knew pretty much what to expect—the Athenians thought they were clever, but they always did the same type of predictable Athena-ish thing. They never put their flag in the same place, but that just narrowed down the other team's options. They also almost always tried to launch a diversion, but the opposite team had learned not to act until an Athena camper led the attack.

Needless to say, Nico wasn't too worried about losing, even now that the Nike kids had finally agreed to ref. Sons and daughters of the goddess of victory won just about everything, so Chiron had finally convinced them to be referees. Sooner or later, even the Nike campers got tired of not trying.

As soon as dinner was over, everyone rushed to the creek in the middle of the forest. Nico's team, headed by Natalie's oldest brother Jackson, faced off with the opposite team, led predictably by Nathan, Athena's senior camper.

As the light faded, Nico got cocky. This was his game now. Even as Chiron was briefly explaining the rules for the benefit of a young Nemesis camper that had recently graduated from the Junior Games, Nico sank into the shadows with a triumphant smirk.

When Chiron gave the signal for everybody to disperse to their starting positions, Nico darted off to a clump of bushes near the creek. Climbing into the lowest branches of an overhanging tree, he artfully knotted the lengthening shadows around him.

A long note sung out of Chiron's conch horn, announcing the start of the game, and almost immediately a few of the Ares campers crossed into enemy territory below him. He perched in the tree, sword drawn. The Stygian iron responded beautifully to the night; it all but disappeared, with a dark glow around it. Nico wondered if anybody else could see it. As planned, Peter followed the Ares kids across the river, clearing it without a splash. His Stygian iron swung in his right hand, bent in the middle.

Nico yawned. He hadn't slept well after his excursion to the Underworld, and he felt the deficit weighing down on him. He swayed, still precariously perched in the branch of the tree, and wondered momentarily what he was doing in a tree. The last thing he remembered was that gravity seemed to have rotated, and he was suddenly yanked to the ground sideways.

A terrific pain slashed his right hand, rudely waking him. His sword was somewhere to the right, and his head was spinning, unable to decide which way was up. His right hand was wet and apparently useless, but he couldn't figure out what had made a wound. He rolled over, panicking, and grappled for Betanima with his left. Instead of forging ahead with his muffled sense of gravity, he hugged the tree trunk and bent the shadows to conceal himself. Given time to think, he started to panic. Why had he fallen asleep? Something was wrong. There was the sound of chaos all around, but for a game of Capture the Flag such a racket would have been impressive even for the Eris kids. No, something was very wrong.

Once his vision had quit wheeling, Nico dashed towards the sound of combat, by the sound of it way too frantic and—real—for a game of Capture the Flag. To his astonishment, fear, and fury, Nico's eyes saw not flesh but bone, pale in the moonlight. Betanima lashed out at their lifeless bodies, seemingly of its own accord. He could just kill them like he had last time, but who knew how many there were? He could easily render himself unconscious doing so. So he fought with his sword. Countless bloodless bodies fell lifeless at his feet, evaporating quickly into dust, and each fall added to his own strength. After he had killed the last living carcass in sight and gotten a good feel for how many had been summoned, Nico decided to risk killing them all like last time, guessing it wouldn't quite knock him out. However, he wouldn't be able to duplicate the feat, so he dearly hoped there weren't more.

_Out!_ he roared inside his head, though nothing came out of his mouth except the silhouette of the words. _Get out of this place! The Ghost King will have you gone._ As Nico began to shake violently, every last one of the skeleton warriors crumbled, reducing the undead to a heap of marrow. The sounds of battle faded, but a last scream bounded through the silent forest, a scream that shoved fear down Nico's throat and into his gut. That scream had been Natalie's.

Instantly Nico sprinted after the horrible sound, his heart beating so hard it hurt. He was going to _murder _whoever had caused these attacks. He sprinted through the dark woods, his sword hanging from one hand as blood dripped from the other. He saw Chiron and Natalie first, then the figure on the ground whose head lay in Natalie's lap. It was Riley, her younger brother, only fourteen, unmoving. Even as Natalie demanded her brother to wake up, to speak, to be okay, Nico felt a horrible high-pitched buzzing in his ears, similar to the high whine of a TV turning on. But it was no TV. Riley's soul had moved on, and Nico grimaced in all kinds of pain as he fell to the ground beside Natalie.

She knew what had happened, what Nico was trying to tell her, but she refused to stop calling her brother's name. She said it over and over again, sobbing, pleading, crying, until finally her hoarse voice faded into shuddering silence. She struggled stubbornly as Nico tried to comfort her, tried to tell her it was going to be okay. Nico pulled her close, gently ignoring her weakening efforts to push him away, to be alone in her grief. Because Nico knew how she felt: she wanted to be alone, but it wasn't what she needed. Natalie sobbed into his shirt, and he held her silently as she cried. A few minutes later, Jackson found them next to the body of his dead brother. His face crumpled into the definition of sorrow. He placed a rough hand on Riley's head, silent tears rolling down his face as he saw a grisly gash in the boy's temple, and gently picked up his brother like he weighed no more than the youngest camper. Solemnly and with a last look at Natalie in Nico's arms, he walked back toward the rest of the camp. Nico stirred, and Natalie looked up at him with her bright green eyes, impossibly full of pain and loss.

"I'm so sorry," Nico whispered, running a hand through his hair in frustration that he could do absolutely nothing, then groaning in pain as he rediscovered his injury. He grimaced at the thought of his own blood in his hair.

Natalie was silent for a while. "Did Jackson take him to the campfire?" she asked hollowly.

Nico nodded, and vaguely hoped she didn't want to move, because he needed—huh, _he _needed, after Natalie had just lost her _brother_—to know he could trust at least one person with his life right now. At least he had that—at least, at the very least, he could know that it wasn't Natalie behind these attacks. He drew his left arm tighter around her, his right hanging awkwardly out of use. Natalie noticed. "Are you okay?" she asked, concern replacing the frighteningly numb tone that she had used a moment ago.

"I don't know." Nico didn't really care right now. After a second of silence, something occurred to him. "I fell asleep."

"What?"

"I fell asleep. I was in that tree by the creek when Peter ran by, just like we'd planned. But then I suddenly got really tired, and I fell right out of the tree." He looked at his bleeding right palm. "This woke me up, only I don't know how it happened." His head snapped up. "Where is Peter?" Nico hissed furiously.

Natalie's head fell helplessly against Nico's chest. "I don't want to talk about this," she managed miserably. Nico's face burned with shame. Her brother had just died, and all he could think about was those skeleton warriors.

Chiron, who they hadn't even noticed leave with Jackson and everybody else, came trotting grimly back. His sorrowful face truly looked millennia old now. Nico helped lift Natalie onto the centaur's back and followed suit, again wrapping his arm protectively around Natalie. Chiron carried them quickly but smoothly to the Big House. He squeezed through the door without bothering with the wheelchair sitting forlornly on the empty porch, and hurried into the infirmary. The few beds were taken, uninjured Apollo kids tending others' injuries. Chiron backed clumsily out of the room and entered another, one Nico had never seen. Nico slid off the centaur's back and laid Natalie down in the bed, Nico guessed a more permanent part of the infirmary. Her eyes were closed, so although Nico doubted she was asleep, he turned off the light, but he refused to leave the room to seek aid for his hand. Instead, he sat against the wall next to her bed.

After a moment, Natalie's red eyes opened. She saw Nico, but probably thought it was too dark for him to tell she was staring. "Moron," she said weakly. "Go get that hand looked at." Nico looked down at his hand. She was probably right. It was dripping all over the floor.

"Will you be okay?" he asked doubtfully.

Natalie smiled bitterly. "What am I gonna do, Nico? Run away?"

"I'm so sorry," Nico said again, closing his eyes miserably. For all he was feeling, he knew Natalie must be feeling ten times worse.

"Go fix that hand," said Natalie again. After a minute, Nico got up and reluctantly headed out the door. He turned at the last minute, and in the darkness that only his Underworldly eyes could penetrate, he saw Natalie mouth "I love you" to herself, as if she were afraid to say it out loud.

"I love you too." Nico said it so quietly that he wasn't sure whether she heard it or not, but he turned around before her face could give it away.

Eventually Nico put together that when he had fallen to the ground unconscious, Betanima had escaped his left hand and he landed on top of it. Good thing it was his right hand that had gotten skewered, since his left was so dominant he couldn't do anything with his right at all. The injury was worse than it looked, apparently, so bad that each of the three Apollo kids he asked referred him to Daniel, which he ignored twice before he finally asked his enemy for help. To Nico's surprise, Daniel didn't once imply his guilt in the undead attack situation, if he did handle the wound with passive animosity. Rough as he was, Hades' son bore it with the reserve of the Silent One himself. Daniel knitted the severed tendon with a songlike prayer to his father, and that was the worst of it, so Nico was told, but he wanted to use old-fashioned stitches to sew the actual cut together, just so Nico remembered to be careful with his hand long enough to let the tendon heal properly.

When Nico left the infirmary an hour later, thirteen stitches made a half-mood across his palm from the base of his thumb to the inside of his wrist. He could barely move his thumb without pulling painfully at the black threads, but he was unable to do even that with the bandage immobilizing his entire hand.

Natalie was gone when he returned to her bed into the infirmary. The only place Nico could think to look was at the campfire, and reluctant as he was to again see Riley's face, too young for death and never to wake again, he searched after her. He stopped by the lake to scrub the blood out of his hair, and found a lumped bruise where he must have hit his head. Cold droplets of water made freezing tracks down his shirt, but he was oblivious. On his way to the pavilion, he saw that the cabins were untouched, as was the courtyard. The campfire itself was deserted save the three children of Hephaestus, and Nico wondered if he should leave them alone or join them to mourn the loss of Natalie's brother. He hadn't known Riley well; he was an eager, perhaps reckless young hero, but wonderful company. Jackson spotted him outside, and he nodded gratefully. Nico entered the pavilion, and slowly walked towards the campfire in the midst of the empty tables.

Jackson appeared to have crafted a hasty burial shroud—Nico guessed he was trying to perform this ritual with as few spectators as possible. The shroud was a long, thin banner of chain mail, like Beckendorf's had been so many years ago, made of a brilliant metal that gleamed like mirrors. Nico couldn't imagine how Jackson had managed to make that much chain mail in an hour, but he _was_ a son of Hephaestus. Natalie had probably helped, too. In the center of the banner was an anvil worked into the chain mail with black metal that looked remarkably like Stygian iron. The campfire before them barely glowed, its flames as black as the night. Next to it was a mournful looking girl picking at the fire with a stick: Hestia. Nico realized he hadn't seen her in quite a while.

Natalie was sitting on top of the nearest table, silently watching her brother arrange the body and the shroud. Glistening tear-tracks shone on her face, but she made no move to dry them. Nico sat on the ground between Natalie's table and the fire, his wet hair making him shiver.

All was quiet as body and shroud evaporated in black flame, four pairs of wet eyes watching.


	7. Aftermath

In a cabin with only three campers, the loss of one was a massive blow. Jackson and Natalie holed up in the forges when they weren't shut up in the Hephaestus cabin, unable to face sympathy and apathy both, and they let the little shack reach such a temperature that no one else could go in safely. The best Nico could do was leave meals on the doorstep, and make sure they disappeared eventually.

Needless to say, the next trip to the Underworld didn't happen on schedule. It made Nico nervous, but who was he to say anything at all? All he could complain about were nightmares, on the nights he slept at all.

Two nights after the second attack, Nico was sitting alone at his table in the dining pavilion. It getting was dark and everybody else was long gone, milling around in the courtyard before curfew. He glanced resentfully at his incapacitated hand and rebelliously tried to wiggle it around. It was healing unnaturally quickly, but far too slowly for Nico. He grimaced as the stitches pulled at his skin and let it be. His left hand, curled around his immortal piece of charcoal, fidgeted impatiently as he struggled to remember some forgotten dream, something to turn his mind from important things. "Mad World" was stuck in his head. Finally he gave up trying to draw, and laid his head on the table morosely.

"The dreams in which I'm dyin' are the best I've ever had," he started singing to himself in a soft voice rough with insomnia. "Find it hard to tell you," he mumbled on, "find it hard to take." He trailed off. Something about running in circles. "Mad world," he finished flatly. "Stupid world," he growled. He buried his head in his crossed arms on the table and resolved to fall asleep right there.

"Stupid world," agreed a bitter voice. Natalie sat down next to him. He picked his head up off the table and looked at her. She looked rough. But beautiful. Nico smiled tiredly at her.

"Are you back?" he said.

Natalie attempted a smile. "I think so," she sighed. "I just... shut down for a while there," she said slowly, like it scared her. "I don't even wanna know what Riley would have said."

Nico sat up abruptly.. "You know," he said haltingly after a moment. "If you ever _do _want to talk to your brother..." He trailed off. He didn't know if he was saying something stupidly insensitive or not.

Natalie looked sideways at him. "What?" she prompted.

"Well, I can make that happen, you know, being Styx Boy," he finished, smirking at the nickname.

She was silent for a moment, but not offended, Nico was pretty sure. "I don't know that I want to," she said. "Do you know if he's in Elysium?" She stared at the table. "I know he'd try for the Isles if he is."

"Natalie, I don't know how in the world he wouldn't be in Elysium," Nico told her very honestly. He wrapped his good arm around her, and buried his nose in her hair. She smelled like smoke, but not the oh-something's-burning kind of smoke; it was sweeter.

"What're you drawing?" she asked, shifting closer.

"No idea," Nico admitted.

Natalie thought for a moment, trying to contribute. "Draw a—draw yourself!" she said abruptly. "I saw pictures of all kinds of stuff on your floor, some of people, but never you."

Nico blinked. He had never tried to draw himself. "Hmm."

Natalie laughed. It was nice to hear that again. "You're overthinking it. Just draw, Styx Boy."

After a moment's hesitation—she was right, he _was _overthinking it—he roughly sketched a male face, stalling the person-specific features he was pretty sure he was going to botch. He topped his head with a mess of black hair and then didn't know where to go from there.

Natalie giggled. "That looks like you alright."

"Oh, shut up," muttered Nico. "I don't stare at my face in the mirror all day."

Natalie shook her head, shaking with laughter. "You know what I look like better than you know your own face."

Nico grinned at her. "Yep." And before he could come up with a reason not to—don't overthink it—he leaned over and kissed her.

Natalie ruined it with a smile. "Sorry," she pressed her cheek against his neck; it burned feverishly hot, and Nico started.

"What?" Natalie's eyebrows knitted.

Nico pressed the palm of her hand to his cheek. "Are you sick?" he asked, baffled.

Natalie rolled her eyes. "No," she chuckled.

"Why are you burning up, then?"

"Blame Hephaestus," she smirked.

Nico raised an eyebrow. "So you're always a hundred and ten degrees?"

She shook her head. "Not always. Mostly when I get really mad, or—" she blushed, something only Nico would have been able to see in the dark.

"So," Natalie said quickly, "what were you trying to tell me the other night?" Nico's heart skipped half a beat—had she heard him after all? "Something about Peter? Falling asleep?" Disappointment twitched at his mouth, but Natalie didn't see.

"Yeah," he answered after a minute, remembering. "Yeah," he repeated, all his suspicions returning instantaneously: Peter and the warriors and dreams and more death. "Yes," he said a third time, forcefully.

"What?" Natalie asked curiously.

"Peter—he ran by at the same time I fell asleep in the tree." He paused. "Let's see: he's Morpheus' kid; what all would he be able to do? God of dreams, right?"

Natalie made an uncertain face at him. "What are you talking about?"

"Peter! Don't you see?—he made me fall out of the tree during capture the flag. What would he have done that for? He was on our team in the game, and nobody knew the skeletons were gonna show up again."

Natalie still looked doubtful. "Are you saying that our best swordsman, one of the only people that can _kill _the undead warriors, is _summoning_ them? That's crazy!" Nico frowned stubbornly, but she continued. "I don't know why he put you to sleep—that's weird, I admit it. But summoning enemies to sack his home?"

"I don't know—but Minos sure knows how to knock sense _out_ of people. Certainly out of people that want revenge. What could Peter possibly want?" A face jumped unbidden to his head. A dark-haired Morpheus kid: Peter's brother Kyle. He'd been killed in the battle against Luke's army. Nico finished the scrawled face with Kyle's features.

"You wouldn't remember him," Nico answered Natalie's questioning look. "He was Peter's older brother, killed in—a battle against some of the Titans and the leader of their army." He didn't want to explain that. "I wonder…. You know what, I bet one of the skeleton warriors killed him—and he blames me!"

Nico fell silent. There was no way to prove it, but he was almost positive he was right.

"That… makes sense," Natalie admitted after a moment. "A little out there, and by no means a sure thing, but I would believe it."

Nico bit back a less-than-family-friendly word. Peter must be summoning the undead warriors—but how? And where did Minos fit in? Was Peter calling Minos from the dead, who in turn called the skeletons to the surface? It seemed like the only way. He had heard there were ways for others (not children of the god of the dead) to summon the dead; they were far more complicated, obviously, but possible.

"We need to get campers back down to the Underworld."

"Nico," Natalie sighed, "it's almost dark. Nothing is going to happen tonight. I agree with you, but honestly, I don't really care right now." Her unhealthily warm cheek pressed against his neck. "You're freezing," she murmured.

"Yes, I am," Nico agreed fervently, and hugged her close.

"Nico?"

He looked down at her.

"Have you ever met your dad?"

"Yeah, a couple times. Have you not?"

"Only once. When I got to go up to Olympus for Winter Solstice. Jackson had already been, so he let me go instead. I think you were there, too? I'm pretty sure it was all the cabin seniors."

"I remember. What's he like?"

"He seemed sad to me—like I made him remember sad things. My mom, maybe? I've never met her." She paused. "Orphanage, naturally." For the first time Natalie sounded bitter. Even in mourning she had always been sad, never bitter.

"Me and my sister got dumped in the Lotus Casino. Chiron supposedly shut it down after we came, but—I don't know. Things like that aren't so easy to get rid of." He shrugged. "We were there for seventy years." The words tasted wrong in his mouth. He was eighty-something years old. It was a little gross. "Zeus killed my mother." Nico waited for another surge of anger, the same one that he felt every time he talked about Zeus. But there was just resignation. "I think he loved us," Nico said. "He saved us—me and Bianca. And hid us for a really long time. Trying to keep us safe." But gods were never great dads, whether they tried to be or not. It wasn't anybody's fault.

"Hey," Natalie sighed, "we're alive."

"I suppose that's the point, isn't it?" Nico laughed tiredly.

They wandered back to the cabins, Natalie's ash-covered fingers between Nico's heavily bandaged ones.


	8. Save the Dyslexic Cows

"Go away," Natalie muttered distractedly. Nico chuckled but remained silent. Her sword looked flawless and beautiful at that, but naturally the artist thought otherwise. The weapon lay across her knees, still raw, rough iron. She had her pants rolled up so they wouldn't catch fire as she painstakingly etched each detail into the flat of the blade.

It was a long tapering strip of metal, carved with minimalistic details to look like a feather. Natalie had chiseled oblique lines from the middle out to resemble the filaments of a real feather, and notches where they separated on occasion. Nico didn't know how she was going to fight with such a piece of art. A fire opal from Hephaestus was set in the pommel of the two-handed hilt.

After over three hours (and she was _fast_, so that was a long time), Natalie was finally ready to cool the reheated iron into the Styx. Nico could tell she was nearly tired enough to pass out even before she got completely out of the heat; she practically staggered to the river. The air shimmered around her and steam leaped from the water as it sucked heat from the metal. Nico took the sword from her and plunged his fist in as well, noticing that it stung less each time.

"I'm _hungry_," a newly exhausted Natalie mumbled as she sank to the ground. But she grinned when Nico handed her the finished sword. "Oh, yes. This thing is beautiful." She turned the weapon this way and that, looking more pleased with herself every second. Suddenly she frowned. "Whoa." She held the sword up to Nico. "Look."

The fire opal was melted into the Stygian iron, and near the seam it either looked like the metal was glowing, or the fire opal had lost some of its color. "I don't think you're getting that back," Ncio told her with a grin, "so I hope you like your sword."

She beamed, her chest puffed out in pride. "I think I do." She shoved the blade into her big leather backpack, but it still stuck up awkwardly.

"What does the opal do?" Nico asked. "It's from your dad, right?"

Natalie nodded. "It gives me better control over fire. The more fire, the harder it is to make it do what you want it to. I bet it's the same way with water—like for Percy and the twins."

"It's definitely that way for dead people. The more skeletons, the more rebellious they get," Nico chuckled, but by Natalie's stern look, it probably wasn't the best thing to joke about. She probably just didn't want other people hearing it.

"So... how 'bout McDonald's? Is Jackson done?" Natalie swayed unsteadily. She looked like she was going to crash any minute now.

"No!" Jackson protested from his forge. He was sitting on it, looking almost as worn out as his sister. "Not McDonald's again. Nope. Chick-fil-A all the way. Burgers are disgusting."

"Yeah, save the stupid dyslexic cows," Natalie muttered.

"Well, I think the satyrs were told McDonald's, but ask Argus. I bet we can go by Chick-fil-A on the way home."

"Oh!" Natalie exclaimed. She shed her monstrous leather backpack and dug through it for a minute. Pulling out a sagging leather shape, she told Nico, "I told you I was experimenting on your Stygian iron—well, I was, but I made you a scabbard that actually fits your sword."

He took the black leather scabbard and removed his sword from the old one. It slid into the sheath with not so much as a hitch.

"I forgot about it after the—attack." She fell silent and her eyes wandered to her sword.

"What are you naming your sword?" Nico changed the subject.

"Periphas. It was the name of a king Apollo turned into an eagle. Zeus was mad at him so Apollo did it to protect him."

"Nice." Nico held out his hand and hauled Natalie up. "Let's go. I'm hungry, and I've been doing absolutely nothing."

"You're a boy. You're always hungry," she teased.

They amassed their army and headed back to the tunnel to the surface. Mrs. O'Leary was still cavorting with Cerberus and paying them no attention. Their last trip to the Underworld was done, as was every sword/axe/spear/mace/dagger and its oath.

Except for Natalie's. She had decided on her oath, but she was waiting until they got back to camp to make it, for some reason. She wouldn't tell anyone what it was except for Jackson. Nico was dying of curiosity, but he didn't ask.

The bus ride wasn't very long, but Natalie was thoroughly unconscious before they got out of Central Park. Nico was teased mercilessly about snuggling with Natalie, but since she was asleep in his arms, he really couldn't have cared less.

And it was really adorable when she woke up.

Leading her brother by the hand, Natalie headed for the forest after they unloaded the bus and she had a chance to drop her stuff off at the forges. She wouldn't have minded Nico following, but she admired and appreciated his restraint; he hadn't even asked, since he knew it was a family matter. Not that she would tell him that.

Natalie would never forget where Riley had been struck across the temple by a skeleton warrior; she found it easily. She dropped Jackson's hand a couple feet from the exact spot and placed the tip of her newly formed blade in the dirt. She turned to look at her brother, and he nodded, his face melancholy.

Memories from that night suddenly and inexorably filled her head; she couldn't have helped the tears even had she wanted to. Fourteen. Too young by far. He hadn't even ever met his own father. Truthfully, it made her angry. Was Hephaestus really so busy he couldn't speak to his own children? One of them had died, and not a word from him. She wondered if he even knew, or cared.

Natalie realized that the swordpoint was sinking into the ground under angry hands, and yanked it free. Resting it lightly on the ground, she made her Stygian oath.

"By the Styx, this sword was forged in memory of Riley Smith." It hadn't been his real name, but when they came to camp, most of the Hephaestus campers, especially those without real families, took the name Smith in honor of their dad and their craft.

Fire lanced up the blade, and Natalie indifferently felt heat rise and fall in her fists. Distantly wondering whether the fire opal had anything to do with the unexpected fire display, she lifted the sword to look at it.

Natalie gasped. She carved no Greek into the blade, but there it was, across the base of the blade on both sides: In Memory of Riley Smith, Son of Hephaestus

She realized what must have happened, and began to cry. Jackson was concerned at first, but when he figured it out too he just looked shocked. Hephaestus knew _and _cared. He might even love them.

She offered thanks skyward, and brother and sister returned to the camp in a not-unhappy silence.

Nico watched Natalie traipse into the forest with Jackson, and he wished he knew what was going on, he sensed it was a sibling-only event: none whatsoever of his business.

He heard shouting from the Big House, and though he knew that probably wasn't any of his business either, he approached the building curiously. Gathered around its porch was a fairly large group of extraordinarily quiet half-bloods. Guessing there was a newly-arrived half-blood inside the house but wondering why it had caused such a disturbance (or lack of one), he tried to ask a nearby girl whose kid the newcomer was. But she just stared and pushed him toward the door. What the crap?

Others repeated the gesture, and Nico was about to tell one of them to keep his hands to himself when he tripped up the first stair to the porch. What on earth was the matter with everyone? He almost sank back into the darkness of sunset just to freak everybody out.

But he was obviously wanted inside. Nico paused on the threshold. Chiron and a little redheaded girl who must be the epicenter of all this uneasiness turned to look at him when he coughed.

"Nico." Chiron sounded perplexed, to say the least.

The little girl—she must have been five or six—looked at Chiron in surprise, then back at Nico. "You're Nico?"

Nico was extremely confused. "Who is this?"

"Um—Nico, this is your sister."


	9. Stalking the Sleepwalker

Her name was Anastasia. She was eight. And sure enough, there was a little halo of darkness hovering above her head of curly red hair. Nico couldn't doubt her parentage after that, but she looked about as much like a Hades kid as Nico looked like a son of Apollo. The only feature they shared was their dark eyes, and Nico didn't know how she'd ended up with those together with her bright orange hair.

"My sister?" Nico repeated stupidly.

Anastasia put her hands on her hips. "No, I'm your uncle."

Chiron glanced down at the girl reproachfully, but he didn't say anything. It was one problem with having such young campers—they were remarkably uncooperative until one of their siblings convinced them they wanted to be here.

Nico supposed that was his job now.

"Uh, let me show you the Hades cabin," he managed, and shot a sarcastic thanks-for-the-warning look at Chiron. He shrugged with a small smile.

Anastasia followed him quietly, attracting many amused and curious glances from the other campers.

"Nico?" It was Natalie, back from the forest. Jackson must have gone back to his cabin, or to the forges to make his axe a scabbard. It looked like she'd been crying again.

"Are you alright?" he asked.

Natalie didn't answer, just looked at Anastasia in confusion. "Who's this?"

Anastasia stared up at Natalie defiantly. "Who are _you_?"

Natalie couldn't hold back a giggle, and slapped a hand over her mouth sheepishly. "Is this your… sister?" she asked finally, looking incredulous.

"Yes," Anastasia said, her hands on her hips again.

This time it was Nico's turn to giggle.

Anastasia glared at him, and Nico apologized immediately. He should be helping her out, not making her feel even more out-of-place and insignificant. "This is Natalie. Natalie, Anastasia."

Natalie's eyebrows were climbing into her hairline. "Nico, she's so _cute_!"

The little girl lifted her chin proudly, smiling until she realized she was supposed to be mad. Even then, however, she looked pleased. "I'm going to my cabin with my brother," Anastasia told Natalie importantly.

"Well, I'll come with you," Natalie said.

Anastasia turned to Nico suspiciously. "Is she allowed?"

"Absolutely," he said with a grin. He reached out and threaded his fingers through Natalie's. Anastasia squinted at the two of them for a moment, then grabbed Nico's other hand. He didn't have any left to cover his grin.

Nico quickly grew fond of Anastasia, but a part of him was just more afraid. The skeletons were overdue for another raid on the camp, and he did _not_ want Anastasia involved. Or Natalie. Or—he didn't want anyone involved. But Anastasia was the one who couldn't protect herself. Was that Nico's job too?

So of course, when he saw Peter wander off into the forest on his own in the lengthening shadows, Nico followed him. He knew it was foolish, but he couldn't shake his suspicion of the Morpheus kid. And it was getting dark: Nico had the advantage.

Nico followed him at a distance, concealed in the shadows courtesy of his father. Peter obviously heard him once or twice—it was camouflage Nico specialized in, not stealth—but beyond a wary look around, he dismissed it. Deep into the forest, far away from anywhere campers ever went except during Capture the Flag, Peter stopped, and after a moment of nervous double-checking that nobody was around (_Look again_, Nico thought wryly) he sat down against a tree and closed his eyes. Was he summoning Minos? Nico's hand tightened on his sword, even though he could do nothing to a ghost. It was the skeleton warriors he was concerned about. But he wasn't moving—what _was_ he doing? Was he _sleeping_? He _was_ the son of the god of dreams. Was he summoning the skeletons from his _dreams_?

After Peter didn't move or open his eyes for a couple minutes, and Nico felt no spirits escaping the Underworld, Nico retreated out of the forest. He was at a complete loss. Maybe Natalie would know. He peeked in his cabin, looking for Anastasia, who might know where Natalie was. Anastasia didn't know. Next he went to the forges, sweat instantly flowing in the inhuman heat, only to get a shrug and a shake of the head from Jackson.

He finally found her on the floor of the Hephaestus cabin, tinkering with some new gadget. The cabin was pretty messy—or at least what appeared to be Jackson's corner was a mess. But it wasn't nearly as bad as his cabin. The building was made of dark, smoky-looking brick. It was brightly lit, with fireplaces and respective chimneys at opposite ends and a massive fireplace that looked more like a forge in the middle: the cabin was shaped like a squat, angular O. A few tiny automatons skittered across the floor between small projects spread across oily rags. There was a vast assortment of weaponry mounted on the walls, all of it dangerously beautiful.

"Hey," he said when she didn't hear him knock.

He wondered if he'd have to yell, but after a moment she looked up, and her face broke into a big smile. "Hey. No Anastasia?"

Nico shook his head, grinning, and sat next to her. Probably a little closer than necessary, but when did a little physical contact kill anybody? (On second thought...) "What're you working on?" he asked, peering at the gears and unidentifiable oily metal pieces in her hands and on the floor.

"iPod's are too expensive."

Nico thought this was irrelevant. "And?"

"So I'm going to make one myself."

"Nice. How exactly are you going to do that?"

Natalie laughed. "I know better than to try and explain any of that to anybody but Jackson."

He grinned. "Good decision."

"Though I'll probably pay off some Hermes kid to pirate the software. God of thievery and all that."

Nico watched her assemble the tiny pieces, unable to follow what she was doing at all. He picked at the bandage on his hand idly. That reminded him, it was about time he went and harassed Daniel about his hand. "So," he said.

"What?"

"I followed Peter into the woods a minute ago," Nico admitted sheepishly.

Natalie shot him an exasperated look. A you-know-better-than-that look. A look he ignored.

"And he went into the woods where nobody ever goes by themselves except in Capture the Flag. And… fell asleep."

"And…?" Natalie looked like she was trying to decide whether to be amused or annoyed.

"And—!" Nico managed indignantly, "and he's up to something!"

"I don't even need to tell you how stupid that _sounds_," said Natalie, "but he _is_ the son of Morpheus. Dreams, right? He put you to sleep on command. What else would he be able to do? Manipulate dreams to some degree, I would expect. Maybe even get into other people's dreams."  
"What if he can summon skeletons in his sleep?" Nico pointed out.

"Or summon ghosts?" Natalie corrected. "I wasn't exactly awake that day…" She trailed off with a smirk. "But I do remember you saying that you felt Minos' presence the first time the skeletons showed up. _Maybe_, he summoned the ghost king"—Nico frowned—"and the ghost summoned the skeletons. He would have much more influence over them than Peter would."

After a long look at Natalie, Nico finally told her, "You're brilliant."

She beamed.

"I'm—I'm just scared they're gonna show up again," he confessed, raking a frustrated hand through his shaggy hair. "I don't want them coming back at all, but now that Anastasia is here… There's no way she can defend herself."

"Teach her how to kill zombies. You can kill them. If that's too much for an eight-year-old, can't you just teach her how to keep them away from her?"

"Yeah, I guess. But is there any kind of ward thing I could give her? I don't want to throw her into the deep end."

"I get that. But I really think she could do it." She reached over and swiveled Nico's head around to face her. "You're a good brother, you know that? Anastasia is in good hands."

Nico looked into her green eyes, and his hand rose to trap hers to his cheek, oily or not. She was burning up, as usual, and he was predictably freezing. He sighed. "I love you."

The oily pieces of Natalie's iPod-to-be fell unheeded to the floor as she leaned up and kissed him.

Last time had not _really_ been a legitimate kiss, Nico realized after a few seconds of Natalie's mouth on his. Her face in his hands grew dangerously hot, and so did the hands playing with his hair. He could quite happily have stayed where he was for an indefinite amount of time, but then they heard footsteps.

They both watched guiltily as Jackson came in, ignored the two of them, grabbed something out of a massive iron-bound chest, and left.

Nico grinned over at Natalie, embarrassed. She was particularly beautiful with a blush in her cheeks. "Does he care that we're making out in his bedroom?" he teased.

Natalie rolled her eyes. "He doesn't care. As long as we keep it, you know, moral and all that."

Nico blushed furiously, and she laughed.

He took her advice, and began educating Anastasia in the dark arts. He started with the basics, twisting shadows; she was pretty good at it. She could all but disappear even to him after only a day of it. Nico had a feeling that sooner or later she would try to ambush him in the door to their cabin.

That night, Nico told her about the skeleton warriors: how they kept showing up and wreaking havoc on the camp; how they'd forged Stygian iron weapons for some of the campers so they could kill the undead; what Stygian iron _was_; how some thought he was responsible; how he could communicate with the skeletons and banish them back to the Underworld. At this point he explained to her how much energy it took to control them, and that she should just tell them to keep away from her if they raided the camp again.

"What do you mean? I just tell them to go away, and they'll leave?" Anastasia couldn't understand why they would obey her, but she seemed to trust him enough to do what he said.

"If they come," he told her seriously, looking right into the dark eyes that looked so much like his own, "I want you to get into this cabin and not come out until they're gone. Got it? I don't want you getting hurt."

She didn't understand, but she knew that it was important to him. She nodded with wide eyes.

Nico hugged her, feeling a little better. But he was still afraid.


	10. Like We Need Any More Insomnia

Nico stared listlessly at the dark ceiling and its flickering reflection of the dim Greek fire. At this point (it was two or three in the morning by now), he knew the night was a lost cause. He rolled out of bed, piles of paper under his bare feet. Squatting, he fished around in the leaves of paper for his stick of charcoal, rolled it between his fingers, and grabbed a handful of loose paper. He padded outside, then right back in to get his sword, which he knew better than to leave behind when skeleton creeps might show up any day.

Nico shivered as dew soaked at least a foot and a half of his pajama pants, and made a mental note to get himself one of those Snuggies, or at least a decent blanket. A sudden visual of him and a Snuggie almost made him snort aloud. He could really use a good night's sleep.

Nico sat down at his table at the pavilion and tossed his paper, sending it spinning over the flat surface. The moonlight was exceptionally bright, probably brighter than the torches in his cabin, and by it he saw Natalie's face. He pulled a wry smile at the chance of picking this particular drawing from the mountain of paper on his floor. On another sheet of paper was a centaur (not Chiron—Nico didn't know who it was) wielding a spear longer than his entire body. On the back of it was Anastasia. This one made him smile too. She really couldn't look less like a child of Hades; except for her eyes, which were practically black they were such a dark brown, she looked nothing whatsoever like her brother.

A twig snapped behind him and Nico froze. It must be a demigod; the satyrs were nimbly sneaky, the nymphs even quieter. But why would any of the above be sneaking around the woods at night? Of course, he awake at this hour on a regular basis, but he didn't go _camping_.

He didn't hear the sound again for a moment, but Nico watched the forest warily, his drawings forgotten. He couldn't afford to ignore anything out of the ordinary, not with things the way they were.

Finally Nico couldn't stand to just sit still and wait for something to attack him, so he stood and crept toward the edge of the forest where he thought the stick had broken. He twisted shadows around him, making sure that even if he was seen, he wouldn't be identified as a person, at the very least not as himself. He bit back a sharp exclamation as he stepped on a pinecone or something equally uncomfortable. Invisibility wouldn't help him much if he sounded like a rhinoceros.

He stopped in his tracks when he heard another non-animal noise to his left. Whoever he was following must be following the fringe of the forest. But why?

A buzzing in his ears made Nico's face drain of color, and lit the uneasy butterflies in his stomach on fire. He broke into a run, silence and invisibility both abandoned in favor of speed. He must have been closer to the mysterious wanderer than he thought; he slammed into Peter with considerable force and sent them both sprawling. In his panic, Peter drew his sword and opened up a long slice across Nico's ribs. Nico swore loudly.

As they scrambled up to face each other, Peter's face the picture of fear and Nico's of hatred, Peter blurted, "Nico!"

"Yes, _Nico_," he growled furiously. "What are you doing out here?" He barely kept himself from running the boy through. If he hadn't been up to anything furtive, he wouldn't have drawn his _sword_ and _attacked_ the intruder. Whatever Natalie said, Nico held this boy responsible for Riley's death.

Peter looked surprised and offended, then angry. "What are _you_ doing out here?" he shot back. "Come to round up some more carcasses so you can ransack the camp again?"

Nico was distantly shocked at the intensity of the anger making his entire body shake. "You," he snarled, "don't you _ever—_"

"Ever what? Accuse you of something you did? It's nothing new—why get mad now?" Peter looked furious; he was probably just saying things to make Nico mad, but it was working.

He drew his sword, half-expecting it to be in his hand already, and lashed out with it in a single movement. Peter took a frantic step backward but caught a lucky nick in his arm. The cut across Nico's ribs was burning, and he could feel the warm blood trickling down his side. He just hoped it wasn't poisoned.

Peter stood frozen for a split-second, staring hard at Nico, then took a determined step forward. He tested the water with a few easy, beginners' techniques, but as they began to fight in earnest, Nico saw they were extraordinarily evenly matched. It would have embarrassed him at another time, but he was a little more concerned with his life than his ego.

Archetype was quite a piece of work. It was a chunk longer than Nico's own sword, which was unhelpful to say the least. For once, Nico wasn't appreciating Natalie's handiwork. Soon enough, though, Nico had put his own mark across Peter's chest, and it was clearly hurting him.

A red-fletched arrow lodged itself in a nearby tree, and Nico's concentration wavered, but neither of them relented. Both were desperate to disarm the other, and finding it quite a task just to avoid serious injury. But it is practically impossible to ignore an arrow in you, and whoever was shooting obviously had that in mind, because he shot Nico in the left shoulder, carefully aiming not to kill him. Peter froze in confusion, but didn't finish Nico off, probably thinking he had backup on the way.

Nico hissed in pain as his sword arm went limp and useless. It was all he could do not to drop the sword, but with his right hand still healing, he couldn't even just defend himself right-handed. But still Peter didn't press the advantage, just stood there panting, looking at the third party.

Nico whirled painfully around, grimacing at the attacker. Jackson. He was so surprised he didn't react at all. "Why did you do that?" he demanded hoarsely.

"You have no business attacking anybody like that," Jackson said calmly. If a looming wall of thunderclouds can be called calm. He looked positively dangerous. "Especially two years younger than you, good swordsman or not."

Nico looked at him in disbelief. "This is the boy who killed your brother!" he shouted. "This is our traitor! He's been summoning ghosts and undead warriors against the camp! If he doesn't deserve death, kill _me_." He spread his working arm wide.

The pain in Jackson's eyes was raw. Clearly he'd had no notion of that whatsoever. Nico almost felt bad for causing him yet more pain, but if it would put a stop to this situation, it was worth it.

Finally Peter took advantage of the confusion and tension to attack once more. He dove at Nico, trying to run him through with his bent blade, but Nico thrust the sword to the side with his bandaged hand. It sliced clean through the thick layers of gauze and a couple of layers of skin, but missed Nico's crucial organs and threw Peter off balance. Nico punched him as hard as he could, tearing the skin of his newly wounded hand even more, and Peter collapsed in front of him, dizzy.

Still far too angry to be reasonable, Nico jammed his foot into Peter's neck, threatening to crush it. "Do you have anything to say to me that you think I want to hear?" Nico demanded furiously.

But Peter only smiled, the coldest and most bone-chilling smile Nico had ever seen. It looked grotesque on such a young face. An unintelligible raspy sound came from what was left of his windpipe. Nico eased off a bit.

"What?"

"They're…they're coming." There was faint satisfaction. Satisfaction!

Only then did Nico see the wispy form of Minos, a face he loathed almost as much as the one under his foot. Smiling. Even as the ghost faded, Nico swiped through the apparition with his working arm.

"Kill him," Nico muttered regretfully as he sprinted off toward the camp, where he knew there would be more undead come to kill the living. As much as he wanted to kill that boy, he knew it was Jackson's right to avenge his brother's death if he so chose. ..._He better so choose_, thought Nico furiously.

The first cabin he disturbed was the Ares cabin. They would be the quickest out of bed with the promise of a fight, and they had the most Stygian weapons. A tall, muscular boy with a gruesome tattoo on his shoulder opened the door, looking disagreeable. Then again, the Ares kids were always disagreeable.

"Get your Stygian weapons out here now. The skeletons are back." Nico was gone before the kid could move.

He rudely woke all the kids in the twelve major cabins, and when he got the Hephaestus cabin Natalie came out with him to help wake everybody up. They would be up any minute now.

The buzzing was never a good sign, but this time it was so loud his ears rang for minutes afterward. Usually the sound meant death, but in this case it was the dead themselves. When he told Anastasia to stay inside their cabin, she looked like she had a headache too.

The steadily growing pool of demigods in the courtyard stirred uneasily, every last one of them silent. Half of them had armor over their clothes—those that weren't still in their pajamas. This was not going to be good. An Apollo kid spoke a hasty prayer over Nico's shoulder, but he still could barely move it. He appreciated Jackson's intentions, but not the wound.

A shout rang out as the first skeleton staggered around the side of a cabin. More shouts, more skeletons. Nico traded weapons with another camper, since he couldn't fight with his shoulder and somebody else could use his Stygian iron. Might as well minimize casualties.

Looking up at a touch on his shoulder, Nico was surprised to see Daniel. "Want me to try and do something for your shoulder? We need you."

His prayer was longer, with a musical note to it, and Nico could feel the magic working on the muscle under his shirt. There was a reason Daniel was the head of his cabin. Nico clasped his hand gratefully, thanking him, but there was an unspoken warning: Nico would hurt himself, get himself killed, if he tried to do more than he could.

Natalie was looking at him with concern. "Stick with me," she told him; there no room for argument. Nico didn't want to argue. They needed each other. Back to back, they tensed in anticipation.

The sound of conflict started small, as the first few skeletons made their advance, but grew quickly into a deafening din. Soon even Nico and Natalie were surrounded, and they'd been in the middle of the mob of half-bloods. There were piles of bones on the ground, but alongside them the bodies of fallen demigods. As he watched helplessly, a kneeling Apollo camper tending to the wounded was run through by a demon that had snuck up behind him. Nico resisted the urge to send the warrior back to Hades with the thought of Natalie's order to stay with her.

Even back-to-back with another half-blood, combat was still horrendously dangerous; there was close call after close call when one of them only just managed to kill a skeleton warrior that had approached them sidelong. The state of Nico's arm was rapidly deteriorating; it was still injured, no matter what Daniel had done to it. In addition to the injuries Peter had inflicted, Nico soon accumulated countless nicks, and blood trickled down his face, soaked his shirt, and tickled his bare feet. He was afraid Natalie wasn't doing much better, but when he chanced a glimpse of her he almost smiled. She was a far better swordsman—swordswoman—than he was, and she had been working with all manner of weaponry before he had even seen a real sword. She had ten tricks up her sleeve for every one of Nico's.

Even with the casualties covering the grass, there were still far too many skeletons to banish. He was tired and hurt, and there were _so many_. Peter had obviously intended to wipe out the unsuspecting camp, and it would have worked if Nico hadn't been awake.

A sudden idea occurred to Nico, though, that might just work. The more you tried to do, the more energy it expended. But with two people, Nico thought, killing them all might just be possible. What if he and Anastasia tried to join forces, in a way?

It was enough of a possibility that Nico was willing to risk his safety to put it in motion. Of course, the plan depended on his living through this, but he was desperate. Without distracting Natalie, he darted through a gap in the clamor towards the Hades cabin. He barely missed a hatchet that flew at his head, but haste was not careful.

His heart sank when he saw Anastasia sitting on the steps of the cabin, nose screwed up in concentration. It was clear she had been doing what she could to kill small groups of skeletons at a time. While she was being extremely helpful, Nico needed her strength, and she had depleted a good deal of it, depending on how many groups of five and ten skeletons had spontaneously died. With a well-rested Anastasia and a healthy Nico, it might have worked. But the work she had already done ruled out multiplying their power by joining it. If that happened even to be possible.

He turned back around before she saw him, hoping not to distract or discourage her.

What Nico saw astonished him. Right in front of him stood his father; fifteen, twenty feet high, in all his dark splendor. His hair was blacker than Nico's, his eyes blacker than Anastasia's. Everything about him was dark, but oddly not evil, despite his reputation. Nevertheless, all Nico felt was anger. The only thing that kept him from trying to put a hole in his own father was the fact that all the skeletons had frozen still. They weren't dead (as dead as they get) but at attention. Every skull was turned towards the god of the Underworld.

"I see you've made quite a mess here." Hades was carefully emotionless, calm but alert, bored but attentive.

Nico ground his teeth with a scowl, staring in an attempt at respect at his shoes. "Peter son of Morpheus did this, Father."

Hades made a bemused sound. All was quiet behind him, but he had eyes only for Nico. "Did he now?" He obviously already knew this—he was a god. But who was going to say anything, if not his own son? "I suppose none of you _want_ them here, then? Because, if not, I have other uses for them. Minos always was dreadfully wasteful." Under his breath, he added, "I think it's time his term ended." Nico could not have agreed more.

But all he said was, "No, sir." It was a surprisingly mundane thing to say to a god. Any human child would have said the same to a stern parent, but demigods rarely had the chance. Nico wondered if his life would ever vaguely resemble normality.

"Well, then," Hades stated simply. He waited until Nico looked up, which he did stiffly but respectfully, and continued. "I'll leave you to your business, then." And as they watched, he dissipated into the ground, taking with him every skeleton and the remains of the rest.

All was utterly silent. Completely and unbreakably noiseless. Finally Anastasia emerged running from her cabin and threw herself at Nico. He scooped her up gingerly, trying not to get blood on her and hoping that it wasn't the last she would ever see of her father. It was one of the few times he himself had spoken to Hades.

"Was that Dad?" Her dark eyes were wide, curious and a little hurt. "He didn't talk to me."

"It's alright," Nico said quietly. "He's not a very social god."

Natalie's tentative hand on his shoulder turned Nico's head. Suddenly she embraced the two of them, and the camp erupted into a roar of triumph, a bittersweet song of victory.

This whole mess was over. It really was.

And as he hugged the two people he loved most in the entire world, for once he wasn't angry at anyone. Not at his father. Perhaps even Peter could be forgiven, given time. But for the moment he was out of the picture; Nico didn't even know if he was alive.

**Still: Thanks, thanks, thanks, TheMaskedWarrior.**


	11. Epilogue: Second Generation

"Daddy! I mean Mommy! Riley's on fire again!"

The "daddy" had woken up Nico immediately, but Natalie was still snoring like an animal. He rolled over groggily and kissed her between the eyes. "Natalie," he said softly. Really, he should know by now that nothing so sweet and quiet would ever wake her up. He made a second attempt, rubbing her arm gently.

Her eyes peeked open, and he told her with a smirk that one of their children had set the house on fire. She was out of the bed in two seconds and running towards Riley's room, shouting, "Riley, honey, I'm coming!"

Nico didn't bother getting up; there was a reason Keira had called Natalie and not him. He had no affinity with fire and it wouldn't take Natalie five seconds to put out anything Riley had started. He kept forgetting to suggest they turn his room into the Hephaestus cabin.

Speaking of which… Riley was almost eight. Technically they could send him to Camp Half-Blood anytime now. Big Three kids (and grandkids) were among the youngest sent to the camp. And Riley had been raised as a half-blood. The more demigods knew about the gods and mythology being real, the more vulnerable to monsters they were. And who knew-their kids were second-generation half-bloods.

Natalie slumped back into their room. She fidgeted around on the bed, and Nico pulled her close. "You know," he murmured.

"What?" she asked, snuggling under his chin.

"Riley's old enough for camp now." He let that sink in.

She was silent for a moment. "Dang."

Nico chuckled. "I know."

"Do you think we should send him?"

He wasn't sure himself. "Eventually, yes. But if you really want to wait, we can delay it until monsters start prowling around the yard."

"They already do that," Natalie said wryly. Nico thought of the small forest dragon they had seen out the window a couple days ago. Monsters usually kept their distance from adult demigods; especially large numbers of them. It was children that they knew they had a chance at snagging. And if a child knew he was a demigod, he smelled like one. Riley and Keira very much spelled like half-bloods.

It clearly made Natalie nervous. Nico was confident the two of them could fend off any monsters that came near, but he didn't like the fact that they were getting cockier. Camp Half-Blood might be a very good idea in the near future.

"I know he wants to go, if that makes you feel any better," Nico offered.

"Oh, I know he does." She paused. "I'll miss him."

"He can Iris us," he assured her. "And Anastasia will still be there for another year or so. She can make sure they're not too much trouble." He laughed; Anastasia being the one keeping others out of trouble seemed backwards.

"Be quiet, Daddy!" Keira reprimanded loudly from her room down the hall. "I'm trying to sleep!"

But he just smiled at Natalie. "Maybe we can get them both out of the house," he teased. Keira, however, was just five and she wouldn't be going to camp for another two or three years.

"I wonder what cabins they'll be in," Natalie wondered aloud.

"I'm thinking our pyro can go in the Hephaestus cabin, and Keira belongs with Anastasia in the Hades cabin." Keira was herself developing many Hades-inherited powers. She was incredibly fond of the dark-she hated night-lights, even as an infant-and she was always complaining about being too cold. That was something a Hephaestus kid could never pull off.

"You're probably right. Are Percy and Annabeth's kids at Camp Half-Blood yet?"

"I think so. Wonder how they're doing."

"We'll have to ask after them when we drop Riley off." Nico grinned. This was exciting.

"Wow," Natalie exhaled. "I never thought I'd be the one complaining about how kids grow up so fast." She kissed whatever she could reach-his neck. "Night."

"I love you," he whispered.

"Love," she mumbled, already descending into the deafening snore that Nico wouldn't be able to sleep without.


End file.
